Australia’s Digital Economy @ 100Mbps and beyond: the potential social and economic benefits from a Next Generation National Broadband Network Infrastructure

Today, over 10 million Australians use the Internet, with the vast majority using broadband technology. While Broadband is often touted as having significant economic and social benefits, the current generation of broadband infrastructure faces constraints in delivering the next generation of applications and services. This report aims to identify the potential economic and social benefits enabled by the implementation and use of a Next Generation Broadband (NGB) Access Network infrastructure in Australia. This follows the announcement by the Australian Government in 2009 that it will construct and run a new high-speed National Broadband Network (NBN). Based on the results of our study of existing literature findings, it is clear that NGB can enable many potential social and economic benefits for Australia, across GDP, productivity, competitiveness & consumer surplus gains, as well as smarter energy resource and transportation supply and use, better Business operations, work/life balance and location, and improvements in Health, Education, Government, Elderly and Regional services.