The flood damage knocked out websites and forced telecoms carriers to reroute international traffic.

BBC: Storm Sandy: Data hubs damage concerns

Federal regulators launched a new investigation into whether MCI avoided paying access fees to American local telecoms carriers a few weeks ago.

ECONOMIST: Ebbers’ tangled legacy | The

The competitor they most fear is Cisco Systems, the company that dominates the corporate-data world, supplies more than 80% of the equipment that powers the Internet and is now increasingly selling equipment to telecoms carriers too.

ECONOMIST: Communications: And then came the Europeans | The

China is planning to shake up its near-monopolised telecoms market by creating four nationwide carriers to boost competition.

BBC: A Chinese man makes a mobile phone

First, global telecoms liberalisation has brought thousands of new companies into the competition, including carriers, resellers, aggregators and call-back operators.

ECONOMIST: Commoditising telecoms