Broadband usage aspects

With the rise in the number of broadband connections and steady increase in bandwidth, more and more people are spending more time on the Internet. Originally the Internet was primarily used as an information and communication medium. The low bandwidths meant that e-mail was the most common form of communication on the Internet, while at the same time information was retrieved from text-based websites.

In the meantime the means and methods of using the Internet have undergone a transformation. While information and communication remain important activities, the use of multimedia content has become commonplace. Internet and video telephony are just as much part of this improvement in information provisioning as the piping of audio and video media over the Internet. Let us now take a look at how the Internet will be used in the future (Figure 5).

Figure 5:		Growth of broadband use rates through 2015 (experts in broadband economics)

What will be the dominant ways in which the Internet is used in 2010, according to experts in broadband economics? These experts believe that broadband communications, followed by e-commerce and broadband information services, will enjoy the highest level of use. What is particularly surprising here is the high rate of user-generated content (in other words, content that is produced and made available by users) that is predicted for 2010. Looking at the share of user-generated content in comparison with the traditional content delivered by media companies, it can be seen that user-generated content will at times surpass even the traditional form of content provision, before a more or less even balance is reached in 2015.

If this prediction turns out to be true, then one can really talk about a paradigm shift. This will have dramatic consequences for the product and revenue structures of traditional media companies. In this context the forecasts by experts in broadband economics envisage another marked usage increase for all segments through 2015.

Continued high growth potential is predicted for the broadband market in Germany. However, to achieve this growth it is essential that the applications and services provided over the Internet are perceived as being secure: the confidence of broadband users in online security is an important prerequisite for the continued growth of the broadband market. This view is shared to a high or very high extent by more than 96% of the experts at public institutions.

The security aspects and issues related to broadband Internet are even more crucial, given the constantly increasing degree of global networking. More than 90% of the experts at public institutions agree to a high or very high extent with this view. These results clearly demonstrate that security on the broadband Internet has become a key issue.

Taking all things into consideration, we can state that broadband Internet will remain a growth sector and that targeted technological investment is crucial for the competitiveness of German industry. Broadband Internet is driven by innovation. At the same time this development means that the businesses in the information and communications technology sector will converge. This is the subject of the following chapter.