Though competition has made life cheaper for businesses that make a lot of long-distance calls, ordinary people still pay high prices for lines and local calls.

ECONOMIST: Mexico

Amtrak has stumbled along for almost 40 years, and outside a few corridors that can sustain heavy traffic and can make a contribution to energy security, it only exists as a wispy network of long distance trains that serve no other purpose than to suck the taxpayer dry.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Not a model railroad

Fly-half Davis put over the simple conversion to make it 7-3 but then missed with a long-distance penalty attempt.

BBC: Newcastle Falcons 15-10 London Wasps

But most have a good distance still to go before they can hope to make their long-suffering investors really happy.

ECONOMIST: Japanese corporate profits

Its 1 million users make one-third of all paid Net phone calls, paying a penny a minute for domestic long-distance and 4 cents a minute for calls to Paris (a quarter of what the big carriers charge).

FORBES: Sound Idea