There was once a time when only very few people had a telephone. Now most have several. Just as there was, not too long ago at all, a time when only very few people had a mobile phone. They were only just mobile, being very heavy, large and cumbersome.

Today, in the UK at least, not many people have broadband yet. This probably has quite a lot to do with the price of it now. Hopefully in years to come the price will drop significantly as more and more competition for business and service provision increases, thus encouraging and enabling more and more of the general population of home computer users to get an open connection.

I think the further advantage of this will become evident to business as workplaces start to see the benefits of people working from home occasionally. You never know, you may find that by 2020, your employer provides you with broadband at home for just that reason.

Imagine the scene: you don't feel that well. You're certainly not dying, but maybe you've got a bad cold and your muscles ache a bit, and you just don't physically feel like going into work, so you don't. That's it. End of story. And your employer loses out on a day's productivity. But if you had broadband supplied by your employer, and all that was keeping you going into work was something fairly minor, but not major enough to stop you from being fairly mentally alert, you could do a couple of hours from home and at least keep abreast of any goings on.

By the year 2020 the combined cost of the lost productivity of a few days off ill a year and the usual 3 - 5 days tube strikes that seem to happen a year will probably be outweighed by the small cost of broadband being supplied to you free of charge by your employer.