Nonetheless, it is here and it is happening. Look at it this way: today's 10 to 30-year-old communications agnostics are maturing. The relationships they hold will be defined by the device, the applications, the dynamism and personalisation of the service. The fixed and mobile voice market -- which still comprises 58 percent of today's industry revenues and a much higher percentage of profitability -- will inevitably erode to zero, becoming just another service embedded into applications. Broadband access itself will be commoditised or potentially offered as a 'value-add' by a new generation of providers funded by search, advertising, application and micro-billing revenues.

In this scenario, the telco of the future -- the service providers of voice and broadband access -- may equally be Google, Sky, Trade Me, Skype or new, as yet unheard of brands. The government's UFB initiative will not be the architect of this process -- but it will facilitate the initiative by becoming an open-access platform that any service provider can, in theory, access if it has the service and capability.

So what is the role of the telco in this new world? The good news is that networks are the connecting lifeblood of all new communications and services -- integrating and managing these is critical, complex and specialist. But the business model for network investment is increasingly unstable -- an issue highlighted by Dr Kou Miyake at the recent TelCon 11 conference. He told delegates that while NTT Group now has 14 million subscribers and Japan is the most fibred country globally, NTT's forecast is for fibre costs to exceed revenues, despite all R&D efforts to reduce network costs. The investment pressure is no longer the access network, but the exponential growth in traffic and its impact on bandwidth.

It is a message this country can't ignore: if we get a fibre-fuelled explosion in data traffic -- and we will -- then we need to ask what this means for our market.

This won't be addressed by the government's ultra-fast broadband initiative: backhaul and international bandwidth will be down to the private sector to manage.