The impression of a pair of dinosaurs mating is the dominant view of the France Telecom-Deutsche Bundespost Telekom alliance among the investment community – and it poses little threat to British Telecommunications Plc, Reuters found after sounding out analysts, who were nevertheless wary that that could change if AT&T Co were to become involved: My feeling about this is that if you put together two state-owned monopolies you’re unlikely to get a customer-responsive, sensitive organisation, you’re more likely to get a bigbureaucracy, said John Tysoe of Societe Generale Strauss Turnbull; You really only have to look at the way these people behave to see that they are unreformed monopolists, echoed another analyst, who did not want to be identified; British Telecom chairman Iain Vallance commented The apparent combination of two monopolies would be a sad step for Europe, but we are not afraid of it; he again criticised European Community legislation – Proposals for liberalising network infrastructure are not even tabled; although this is essential to bring down leased line costs and to allow competition to flourish at the service level; the Brussels vision for the industry is disturbingly utility-based, he said.