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The ICANN conference kicks off this week and the media have already fallen all over Vint Cerf in an attempt to get his views on our broadband situation.

To paraphrase, Vinnie reckons our broadband is a kind of medieval version of that which the rest of the world enjoys but he cautions that unbundling the local loop may not be the panacea that some think it will.

He claims that in order to work, unbundling must be well regulated and enforced -- something our present government has shown itself incapable of doing ("let's put Telecom on final notice *again*" shall we?).

This does not bode well for our future in the knowledge economy stakes -- and that's a shame.

But looking at all the plans that Telecom has been trotting out recently I'm still left wondering if we haven't got this whole thing arse about face.

I know of several opportunities out there *right now* for setting up knowledge-based industries here in NZ. Industries that would generate healthy export receipts by delivering customised data to consumers all around the globe.

The problem is that Telecom (and the government) seems to think we only need faster downloads.

If someone can point out to me how you can make a snot-load of money by consuming data I'd like to hear it.

No, if you want to earn money you've got to be a *supplier* and in order to supply a global market, you've got to be able to export that data in a fast and economical fashion.

Even Telecom's new DSL plans will hog-tie you to around 512Kbps which ain't much if you're trying to export a lot of data in the shortest possible space of time.

A single CD's worth of data will still take almost four hours to send across such a link -- and that assumes you're not doing much else with your connection.

Let's say you've developed a nice little business, perhaps writing and performing songs to order for advertising agencies -- or maybe you're a budding young CGI animator looking to perform some contract work for off-shore clients.

This criminally slow upload speed is going to cripple your ability to get your product to your customers.

But wait -- it gets worse!

With an over-cap charge of even 1 cent per MB, it becomes *cheaper* to send your data on a CD through the post to almost anywhere in the world.

I'm sorry, but until someone works out a way to earn money by *downloading* movies, video, music or whatever (rather than uploading it) then Telecom's new 3.5mbps plans are not even coming close to boosting our chances in a knowledge-based economy.

What's more if, as Telecom seem to insist, the average Net user doesn't need, nor would they use a faster upload, then why even bother restricting it? Surely, the fact that nobody would be using it would automatically ensure that a big outbound pipe would not cause loading problems elsewhere.

If unbundling gives us realistic upload speeds then that alone will be worth it.

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