News frenzy

I don't think I've actually had a genuine sense of excitement and anticipation at reading a newspaper before, but this morning ducking down from my cube for a smoko the Herald in hand, I was very much looking forward to what the paper had to say about last night's LLU announcement.

Followed by a tinge of disappointment. There's still a lot to happen before we, as a nation, get to experience faster cheaper broadband. Computerworld has a timeline, showing likely progress, and analysis - most telling of which is

Due to Telecom's delays in delivering on the government's targets, Cunliffe has been forced to lower the goal that New Zealand will be in the top quarter by 2010, to the top half only.

While the likes of Maurice Williamson can bleat on all he likes, it doesn't change the fact that Telecom is a monopolist, and that action needed to be taken.

Sir Humphrey's carries news from NZX/Telecom that the leak came before the cabinet decision, and rightly points out why didn't the government act sooner in releasing the information.

And good on Campbell Live for getting David Cunliffe (video) on Wednesday over CloseUp (RB with the inside scoop, and his own views on the news) and also for getting Teresa Gattung (video) tonight. Goes to show that a new player can play alongside, if not beat, the incumbent given time. Imagine what state we'd be in if our airwaves weren't open to competition. Now look at broadband. If you're not watching JC, then you should.

Speaking of Russell Brown, following the links to the rushed interview(video) he did with CloseUp I was appalled to have defaulted to the tiny tiny version of the video. I switched to the broadband, but it's wasn't reliable enough on my Xtra "3.5mbs" connection.

Amongst a day of news about regulation, government, business and technology it was almost nice to get this curious, if not slightly worrying, piece of news. The BBC turns out either to be putting a strong case in outsourcing the Civil Defense, or reporting events with hysteria. In any case, the Civil Defense have a lot of face-saving to do on this one. It's not like we didn't know ourselves.