The Unbundled Bit Stream service being offered by Telecom (instead of
Local Loop Unbundling) is *not* going to provide anything to anybody except further
revenue to their off-short shareholders. It certainly doesn't provide
the country with an adequate platform for the future of the access network.

I have been spending some time reading various papers for the ${EMPLOYER}
on broadband access and its possible evolution .
One of the more significant themes is the obvious need for access
providers to supply an wide menu of options.
The picture is one of increased pressure to supply more that *just* high
speed internet access as has been the case to date.
This pressure is coming from areas like VoIP, Television broadcast to
Set-top boxes, Video on Demand, Gaming and comsumer appliances such as
digital cameras and music players.
Many of these technologies are also challenging the current focus on
assymetric delivery (dictated by ADSL's dominance of the market).

So we are starting to see a service requirement to be in various tiers
of service:

1      1.5 Mb
2      3.5 Mb
3      5.5 Mb
4      7.5 Mb
5      10 Mb
6      15 Mb

This particular range (from Alcatel) is based on a basic data service of
1.5 Mb with multiples of asymmetric video streams delivered to the home.
(The 2Mb per video stream is based on the arguable premise that video
compression will eventually deliver adequate quality over that
bandwidth).
From that, discussion is on how this may be delivered to customers at
some distance from the exchange.

Now compare that with the current NZ offering.
Commissioner "Turnaround" Webb and Telecom are trying to convince us that 128k bits is *broadband*. This doesn't even qualify as high-speed internet in many
3rd world countries.
They are basically feeding crumbs of access to competitors, in order to
maintain control over the copper, thus preventing wholesale roll-out of
(particularly) VoIP. This is the real disturber technology which will
kill their very lucrative voice transmission market.
At least Telecom are now talking about running fibre to the roadside
cabinets and putting the DSLAMs out there. This will enable a wider
spread of higher speed access ... but not till 2006!

So basically we can expect no on-line video downloads & no video telephony etc.
or any of the developing *wow* technologies, for quite a few years.
Associated with all this entertainment based development comes the
stuff of that mythical beast, the "Knowledge Economy".
It just leaves NZ so much further behind the play!
We are indeed in a sad state until Telecom is *forced* to provide the services
it should over the monopoly controlled copper.
(Otherwise the socialists should nationalise it; like the railways!)