British Telecommunications (BT) and AT&T have broken up their struggling Concert joint venture at a cost of 2,300 jobs and $7 billion in charges.
The long-awaited decision to scrap the two-year-old venture comes after months of talks about how to wind up a business BT had hoped to use to establish a global presence - but which became a burden through its crippling losses.
Concert was created as a 50/50 joint-venture by pooling its owners' multinational business customers. It ended up competing with its parents.
AT&T said it will take charges of $5.3 billion as a result of Concert's demise and the end of a related agreement to buy BT's stake in AT&T Canada.
BT said the break-up would lead to a £1.2 billion sterling($1.74 billion) charge.
For BT, it is the final stage in an ambitious restructuring and clears the decks for it to split into separate fixed-line and mobile telephone businesses.
BT and AT&T will take back most of the parts of Concert they originally contributed to the company. But there will be no jobs at the parent companies for 2,300 of Concert's 6,300 employees.
BT Chairman Mr Peter Bonfield said the winding up of Concert was a sign of the times in a sector that has been battered by the tech downturn and buried by debts taken out to pay for new-generation mobile phone licences.