I'm in Santiago the next few days at the 6-monthly meeting of the APEC Telecommunications and IT Working Group. It's my university where I stay up to date in the fast moving field of telecommunications policy.

This morning there's a workshop on "competition and investment." The aim is to work through the supposed trade-off between the competition-enhancing impact of regulation, and the allegedly investment-inhibiting impact.

So it was seriously heartening to hear a speaker from British Telecom, Karen Northey, state unequivocally that effective regulation encourages investment and innovation, rather than hindering it. I'd always known this, but incumbents so often preach the doom-and-gloom party line to the contrary.

Admittedly Karen is from BT Global Services, the part of BT that operates outside the UK and which incidentally is now bigger than its "parent." But this view of life is company-wide. "Don't be taken in by incumbents' arguments for regulatory holidays," she said. "BT has been regulated heavily and yet is still investing in its 21st century IP network."

It was a refreshing and intellectually-honest view of the scene, and made me very optimistic that Telecom NZ will continue to maintain its good-citizenship approach under the direction of its new ex-BT Chief Executive.