The Commission was determined to stop what it saw as an erosion of the principles underpinning the EU's telecommunications regulatory framework -- which sets out a pro-consumer, market-friendly, legal framework that all EU member states are obliged to implement in their domestic law.

In that fight, the Commission won, and the German authorities lost. Langeheine was clear -- "the debate on regulatory holidays is over," he said, to applause from the conference audience.

The obvious link to be drawn in the New Zealand case is the decision of the Government to give a regulatory holiday to the pending investments in fibre being made through the Ultra Fast Broadband (UFB) initiative.

Whatever the origin of the suggestion, it flies in the face of world best practice. Instead of the experts at the Commerce Commission having oversight of price and non-price terms for fibre supply, the investment company at the heart of the UFB plan (and obliged to make a return on its investment) is given responsibility for controlling those issues via contracts.

A whole set of heroic but flawed assumptions underpin that call: that contract negotiators today have enough knowledge about the communications sector for the next 10 years to get it right; that the obvious conflict between being an investor and a regulator is able to be ignored; and that a regulatory holiday of this type is consistent with this country's international trade obligations.