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The interview was interesting, not because there were any new revelations, but because it showed just how polished Telecom has become at twisting the facts on this subject.

To his credit, Campbell was fully prepared for the predictable excuses offered by Gattung but it's a shame he was so constrained by the time limits imposed by the programme's 20 minute (plus 10 minutes of ads) format.

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Or could it be that a room full of advertising salespeople and bean-counters were relieved that there was no time for JC to really grill the CEO of the company sponsoring the programme?

As I said, most of her answers were predictable and would probably have convinced the ill-informed or unaware -- if it weren't for JC's ability to immediately pick holes in them.

One answer he did leave unchallenged however, was the issue of the tiny data-caps imposed by Telecom on so many broadband plans. When asked why NZ had such small caps while other countries did not, Gattung justified them by claiming that most of the content we access has to come from the USA and that costs money.

Fair enough, the uninformed (such as politicians) might think -- but JC was quick to point out that Japan also has to import most of its content from the USA yet it has no data caps at all.

Gattung responded by pointing out that Japan has a much higher population.

Why didn't Campbell come back and ask why their population should make a single jot of difference? Lack of time? Pressure from the beancounters not to go *too* hard on the programme's sponsor?

By leaving Gattung's response unchallenged, I suspect that many people who watched that programme will now consider the question answered and that small data caps are therefore justified.

And if it's international data-charges that are the killer, why not return to the old way of charging for traffic then? You know, where national traffic doesn't count against your data-cap but international does? Wouldn't this act as a great hand-up for local content producers?

Nice try TV3. This was a reasonably brave attempt to show that your editorial content is not biased by commercial sponsorship -- well not much anyway.

Surely however, this whole issue deserves more than a brief 20 minute (15 minutes once you get all the fluffery out of the way) airing?

If the broadband crisis really is as pivotal to NZ's future as some would make it out to be then we ought to be watching an hour-long programme where the hard questions can be asked and the answers challenged with more than a bunch of canned answers and soundbites.

Is this a chance for TVNZ to pick up the baton and give us a really in-depth investigative programme on the matter?

Let's see them really cut through the smoke and mirrors that make up Telecom's spin so we can really see how badly off we are.

How did you rate Campbell's performance last night? How did you rate Gattung's? What about Cunliffe?

Will the government regulate or will (my bet) Telecom pull off yet another 11th-hour deal that leaves them free to exercise their monopoly with only token restraint?

Tell us all and see what others have to say in The Aardvark Forums

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