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Broadband's next big driver - collaboration

Don't go pinning any hopes on traditional media content

By Tony Hallett

Published: 3 February 2004 08:41 GMT

A surge in broadband usage in the UK is just around the corner and it won't be down to one of the clichéd reasons usually trotted out - it will come about because of collaboration.

While broadband is often assessed in terms of availability in a given geographic area or content that can be served up, a report from Menlo Park Europe, PricewaterhouseCoopers' technology strategy forecasting unit, puts the spotlight on collaborative technologies such as video conferencing and instant messaging.

Although countries such as South Korea and the US have led the way in broadband adoption - with European nations adopting a commercial and regulatory approach somewhere in-between these two extremes - the research forecasts strong growth here.

In the UK, Menlo Park Europe forecasts broadband subscriber figures will rise from three million in 2003 to 8.8 million in 2007. This is a compound annual growth rate of 44 per cent, above the 40 and 27 per cent that will be seen in France and Germany respectively.

There are supply-side plus points now in broadband's favour but it is on the demand side that there are interesting developments.

Greg Garrison, Menlo Park Europe director, said: "Video becomes an important driver. You then take ingredients like presence, collaboration and online gaming and you can see an inflection point."

He reckons we may still be 18 months to two years from the kind of tipping point that saw massive broadband take-up in Korea, for example - but that the day is coming.

And although there are potential pitfalls along the way, the study points to a move away from broadcast media formats over broadband - we will still be loathe to pay for such content, it seems - towards a kind of DIY media. This will mean teenagers playing video games over the web with each other, online family scrap books and more.

Brett Savill, valuation and strategy leader at PwC, said: "It will be like text messaging, which required economies of scale. And then [take-up] won't be driven by traditional content."