AT&T Corp, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom AG were ruefully reviewing their options yesterday after it became clear that there would be no last-minute hitches in British Telecommunications Plc’s plan to acquire MCI Communications Corp. The French and the Germans have their privatizations to complete before they can go much further with Sprint Corp, even if they feel comfortable about the idea of jointly owning the company. As for AT&T, it has been plaintively arguing that the UK market must be opened up a lot more before the deal can be approved, but its argument looks rather hollow given the way cable television companies have been eating British Telecom’s lunch in the local loop of late and the fact that AT&T can buy any UK cable company it wants – and the trunk Energis Communications Ltd network from National Grid Co Plc for that matter – while competition in local telephony has scarcely begun in the US. Observers seem to think that AT&T will now attempt a splash move in the UK market not for sound commercial reasons but simply to get back at British Telecom, in which case Cable & Wireless Plc and Vodafone Group Plc are about the most attractive properties – but given the investment it needs to make at home to get into local telephony and to build up its McCaw Cellular Communications buy, it may not want to spend the cash for such a purchase.
