in education, opening up a whole new experience for both teachers and learners -- and my visit to the US reminded me again of how much ground we have to cover here in NZ before we can really experience this for ourselves and our students. The current focus on the foll-out of UFB to all schools, and the increasing competition among ISPs that is bringing pricing down is a start -- but we must do more here I believe. We must take on board the fact that ubiquitous access is actually an imperative in terms of NZ remaining competitive in the global economy, and that experience of this is an imperative in the lives of our learners. Sadly, we are hamstrung at the moment through the lack of access, the restrictions of download volumes and the pricing schedules -- all of which mitigate against the true experience of ubiquity. We're also hamstrung by many of our leaders in different positions within our education system who still see internet access as an 'extra', an 'option' to consider after the library is stocked and the sports teams are equipped, and by some who demand to see how it all impacts on learning before committing to suppport. Now I'm not knocking libraries or sports teams, nor am I saying we oughtn't focus on how anything we do impacts on learning -- what I am saying is that we need to aspire to a bigger picture here of the imparatives behind achieving the sort