By 12 September any, company wanting access to the local loop had to tell BT which exchanges they wanted access to.

BBC: BT rolls the dice

The Studio offers access to The Loop and keeps track of your contacts and social networks, so you can move between Kin devices and transfer all of your data using nothing more than a Windows Live login.

ENGADGET: Microsoft Kin: everything you ever wanted to know

And the product examples you cite attest to Alcatel's U.S. market leadership in the fast-growing optical submarine network, ADSL broadband Internet access and digital-loop carrier product areas.

FORBES: Readers Say

When the Department of Homeland Security was created as part of the "war on terror, " the old Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was subsumed into the agency, and the repackaged bureaucracy was put back in the loop (the State Department is the access point for visas).

FORBES: Sorry For The Delay

Now, I have to make a crazy loop through the airport and get out the access road to overflow.

FORBES: Technology Saves A Bad Planner

It also includes the construction of highways and a continuous loop road surrounding the Olympic park to provide initial construction access and give vehicles venue access during the Games.

BBC: 2012 Olympic master plan revealed

As long as BT controls the "local loop", the last link from the network to a phone or modem, and insists on metered access, it hardly pays to offer unmetered web deals.

BBC: Unmetered web access in trouble