Folks, some media and telecoms numbers out this week and last:

* The Office of the Telecoms Adjudicator reports that there are now 163000 unbundled local loops, with about 5000 line orders per week. The UK is on target to hit one million unbundled loops in 2006.

* Ofcom reports 65.9% of UK households have digital television (of some type). Q3 saw about a million Freeview set-top box sales.

So, the UK is speeding toward that bright, fully digital future in which broadband is at every doorstep and digital multichannel television streams right into every home. Look for educational attainment, worker productivity and overall social harmony increases in the near future. Or something like that…

But seriously, if Freeview and unbundled loops are the UK government’s preferred industrial policies we will surely see steady progress in these numbers quarter on quarter. That’s inevitable, right? Gosplan mandated more steel production - they got it.

But unbundled loops have their problems. They require constant regulatory oversight and might discourage true infrastructure competition. Freeview has also been called a transitional technology and has about the same usefulness as analogue cable (one-way, limited capacity). And the Freeview programming mostly stinks. So, the big question is not whether these platforms are being rolled out in an efficient, fair and speedy fashion. The big question is whether they will produce results (or don’t impede other results) that work for UK citizens and consumers. They might; I’m not saying they won’t… but I just don’t see the need to cheer the day we cross the 500,000th unbundled loop or the day the seven millionth Freeview box is sold…