The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) found that UK productivity could rise by 2.5 per cent by 2015 - the equivalent of workers toiling for an extra hour each week.

Not only would people benefit, CEBR reckons that government borrowing would be down by £13 billion by 2015 through lower public sector spending and extra tax revenues from a faster growing economy.

The magic bullet? Bollocks! Broadband is simply the means to the end. It's how people use broadband that really counts. Whether they use the internet or let it lie, getting dusty in the corner. Sure it's more fun, fast.

And looking a dozen years into the future, it'll be the way people share, communicate and mingle, that really counts, not forgetting by then, we'll all be on broadband on our phones too.

[Later:] I take it back. Looking at the speeds they're offering in Japan now 26Mbps and only at £20 a month. This really makes my proud 2Mbps pipe look anemic.

If we were all on that type of speed here in the UK, then surely we would be hitting those targets mentioned above. Think of those video conf calls. Web sevices, like I can only dream of. Many, many more web shoppers... Like it says on the BBC article, "a utility like gas or water that is simply there." And, "it seems clear that speed - or the lack of it - as a restraining factor is but a dim memory, and rather it is what you can do that matters."

Bring it on!

1406 Also posted to: Home page , cyberSaps . At: 12:41:19 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Competitive broadband could add £22bn to UK economy