Mercury Communications is seeking to distance itself from the view that it is part of the UK telecommunications duopoly, wanting instead to be seen as just one of the telecoms crowd. In a remarkable change of tack, Mercury now says that while British Telecom, as the dominant market player must be heavily regulated, Mercury should be treated like any other public telecoms company with no special restrictions. The argument comes despite the favourable conditions under which Mercury’s original licence was granted, which gave it seven clear years before any other licences were considered. Mercury’s strategy is a far cry from its previous attempt to establish itself as the company best placed to provide competition. It had argued that its expertise, built up over the seven years, uniquely placed it to compete with BT head on and that licensing other public operators would weaken competition. But having failed to persuade the govern-ment, it is now trying to protect its advantage and ensure that it doesn’t fall under the same regulatory hammer as BT. Paradoxically, Mercury is still using its one strong competitor argument to try and protect its position in the international call market. This is one of the most lucrative sectors of the industry and the one in which it has made the most impact, with 15% market share. Mercury claims that its competition to British Telecom in this area has reduced prices by 30% – a figure disputed by some analysts. And it argues that introducing other operators could severely damage Mercury’s ability to compete, reducing the downward pressure on prices. The non-dominant player argument was set out yesterday in Mercury’s response to the duopoly review, a week after British Telecom published it’s agressive opposition to the government’s competition policy. In conciliatory tone, Mercury chief Lord Young said the review merited eight or nine out of ten, saying the government only needs to tweak it a bit to make sure it works better.