Significance

Broadband is essential to a strong economy, and innovative broadband Internet applications will continue to drive the growth of the World Wide Web.

That means that broadband Internet is also very significant to the German economy, and sector specialists predict further rapid growth in the ICT market over the next few years.¹ By 2015 it will represent almost 12 percent of German GDP, nearly twice its current level (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1:		ICT as a percentage of German GDP through 2015 (acc. to experts at public-sector institutions)2