Broadband Industry Group

The Economic Impact of a Competitive Market for Broadband

UK productivity will rise by 2.5% by 2015 - to achieve the same increased output without broadband, everyone in the UK would have to work one extra hour each week
With faster economic growth, UK GDP will be Ł22 billion higher by 2015
Government borrowing will be Ł13 billion lower by 2015 through lower spending and extra tax revenues from the faster growing economy

The Broadband Industry Group commissioned this report from cebr, an independent economics and business research consultancy established in 1993 providing forecasts and advice to City institutions, government departments, local authorities and numerous blue chip companies throughout Europe.

Broadband has the potential to revolutionise the way we live and work, delivering real economic benefits. This report represents the first attempt to quantify rigorously the benefits of broadband internet to the UK economy. cebr have established a link between broadband internet access and improved productivity and used this to examine the impacts of broadband on the wider UK economy.

cebr have also looked at historical comparisons, considering specifically the railways and electrification. The comparison shows that our estimated impact of broadband is probably less than that of the railways but of about the same order of magnitude as electricity. Moreover, the development of broadband - and hence its economic impacts - is likely to have taken place very much more quickly than the other two technologies - about three times as rapidly as the railways and about six times as rapidly as electricity.

The following links take you to the report, the launch day presentation and press release.