ons, PUCs) and state laws the incumbents slowed or halted effective local loop unbundling in that country. It is not surprising, therefore, that the long distance piece of the break-up, AT&T, could not survive as no customer ownership was effectively possible; it has recently been bought out by one of the descendants of the original RBOCs, SBC. However, in the United Kingdom the recent Strategic Review by the regulator in the United Kingdom, OFCOM, has forced the incumbent, BT, to set up a separate operationally independent entity, Open Reach, with its own accounting as an alternative to hiving off the local loop infrastructure into a INFRASTRUCTURE TO 2030: TELECOM, LAND TRANSPORT, WATER AND ELECTRICITY - ISBN 92-64-02398-4 © OECD 2006 2. TELECOMS INFRASTRUCTURE TO 2030 different corporate entity. It is intended that it resell unbundled local loop capacity to third parties on a level playing field with its parent, an arrangement that required careful negotiation. BT's infrastructure had been specifically designed from the late 1970s on to make separation of local loop and long distance parts quite difficult, especially when the business support services of billing and operational support services for network and service management are considered. Although the United Kingdom has gone furthest, most EU countries have some plan for unbundling the local loop. Effectively, all EU countries still require unbundling. 17 This regulatory sea change over the past 25 years has contrasted with the previous hundred years of voice telephony in that it reveals that the public demands for an infrastructure to better meet their needs were to some extent being heard by government and regulators. This is despite the fact that the public and business demands for better infrastructure at lower cost were not expressed in any way that was concrete or detailed. At best they were latent demands, a need for services that could correspond to requirements for data, mobility and flexibility in customer premises equipment. More deeply, this 