Wow. Zowie. It's happened. The local loop has been unbundled. Read Juha's news story here. And standby for more coverage in our June issue, which will also include our annual Internet Top 20 Power List (I can exclusively reveal that, no, Theresa is not number one anymore; Stand-up, Big Dave).

I think it goes without doubt that cheaper broadband is on the way and that is, of course, fantastic. Already this morning Orcon has sent a press release saying $10/month broadband plans are possible.

And CallPlus and iHug have also promised serious infrastructure investment in the event of unbundling. But that will be at the phone exchange level, or roadside cabinets at best.

My point, which I've blogged on before, remains: the key problem is the cruddy last-mile copper wires. Assuming no-one's going to shell out the extreme capital needed to take fibre to your front door, I worry that Telecom's DSL network will just get overloaded. I just can't believe the broadband limit will shoot up to 7Mbit/s. It's like raising the rush-hour speed limit on Auckland's motorways to 110km an hour. Nice on paper. My colleague Juha Saarinen is more optimistic, however, so make sure you check out his special, extended length Technical Guy column in our June issue, plus comments from wireless players.