etworks, to their betterment technically, in services and in accessibility. We have moved away from command and control or monopoly incumbents to many countries having competing operators, and many with competing infrastructures. In the case of the latter, we have seen the entry of key new players, the mobile operators. Separation of services from infrastructure, opening up infrastructure competition (and overall far greater competition through deregulation) has been a long-term goal for regulators, especially with the attempted opening to competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) in the United States. This largely failed due to the maintenance of control by the incumbents over the unbundled elements. Only in 2005 was any large OECD economy (the United Kingdom) prepared to take the step of forcing its incumbent operator into an externally monitored unbundling of the local loop. Although appearing to be just an accounting system separation, this latest step depends on separation of network management systems and business support systems from the incumbent's operational support systems. It is notable that the early break-up of AT&T has largely failed, leaving the remnants of the merged RBOCs (regional Bell Operating Companies) to dominate the US market, as they moved into long- distance and mobile services, successfully fighting off deregulation with unbundling of the local loop elements to service providers such as the CLECs. Public decision making will however reign over the future telecommunications infrastructure, to a degree still varying by region and country. Harmonisation of infrastructure standards globally is necessary if competition in services, equipment and infrastructures is to be meaningful. INFRASTRUCTURE TO 2030: TELECOM, LAND TRANSPORT, WATER AND ELECTRICITY - ISBN 92-64-02398-4 © OECD 2006 2. TELECOMS INFRASTRUCTURE TO 2030 Part of this harmonisation will be a global or regional opening of the radio spectrum probably towards more unlicensed bands. In general we may expect to see a weakening of 