Still on the subject of telecoms, it's just 15 months since Denis O'Brien and British Telecom chairman Sir Iain Vallance were pictured with clenched fists joined, celebrating BT's €2.4 billion (£1.89 billion) takeover of Esat Telecom. A great deal for all sides was how the deal was portrayed at the time.
No doubt it was a great deal for Denis O'Brien and his Esat shareholders. Esat was sold at the top of the market at a price that shareholders could only dream about now.
If Esat was put on the block now, it's difficult to see how anybody could pay much more than half what BT paid, given the bloodbath suffered by the telecom sector in the past year.
A year later, and BT's board is under heavy fire, with strong speculation that Sir Iain Vallance and chief executive Sir Peter Bonfield may have to walk the plank to assuage the anger of the group's institutional shareholders.
Institutions are angry that there has been little move to reduce BT's £30 billion sterling (€47 billion) debt and are demanding asset sales.
If there are no serious sales of assets or flotations of its directories and mobile phone businesses, then BT, faced with a cut in its credit ratings, is faced with the prospect of going to its battered shareholders looking for more money through a rights issue. The view on the London market is that money might only be forthcoming if Vallance and Bonfield resign.
