Just as we closed our last issue before our brief holiday, British Telecom, predictably did the only sensible thing in its dispute with US DSL specialist ASSIA (Adaptive Spectrum and Signal Alignment), and it settled the matter out of court. ASSIA often markets itself as the company that invented broadband, as its founder John Cioffi was instrumental in winning the first ADSL contracts in the US. The court proceedings in the UK, where the matter began in 2011, had gone definitively ASSIA’s way, and after BT lost the case and its appeal and was faced with paying out something $40 million, around 10% of rental revenue just to keep its Rambo (Rate Adaptive Management Box) switched on, if you include…