| I would imagine that such actions tend to irritate the hive of regulatory | officials. Self regulation would be one way to prevent such action. The answer is simple: have more lawyers than most jurisdictions have civil servants. q: what is a phone company? a: it's a law firm with a side-interest in telecommunications q: what do phone company facilities look like? a: boxes with no windows stuffed with lawyers and an antenna on top q: who has more employees? a standalone ISP or a phone company's legal branch's Human Resources department? a: that's not funny. see you in court. q: is it true that some phone companies' legal branches are revenue centres? a: oh yes. and don't forget that at least one IXC _literally_ sued itself into existence. Is there any serious and relevant regulatory authority which is going to intervene in a contractual dispute between parties which are NOT dominant in their industry? It seems to me that players like C&W face vigorous competition. Sean. PS - can you tell how much i hate it when vaguely technical people pose ex cathedra about vaguely legal & regulatory issues? - -- Sean Doran <smd@clock.org>

From WordNet (r) 1.6 [wn]: "mulch, noun. 1. a protective covering of half-rotten vegetable matter (cf legal department)"