In respect of investigating the increasing availability of different generations of broadband a report was produced by SQW Limited and used extensive consultation with industry and economic modelling to establish the pattern of rollout and the value of different generations of broadband. The Broadband Next Generation Research report can be found at
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/01/09153006.
The report examined the increasing availability of different (first, second and third) generations of broadband as well as their relative value to Scotland's economy and forecasts that Scotland's GDP (at basic prices) will be £3.4 billion higher by 2015 due to the rollout of broadband.
The first 'generation' of broadband was considered to start in the bandwidth range of 512kbps (10 times faster than dial-up) with subsequent generations of broadband also increasing in factors of 10 - so second generation broadband was 5meg+ and third generation, 50 meg+.
The report indicates that most of the economic benefit (for business productivity) from broadband still comes from first generation bandwidths, which have already been rolled out to every community in Scotland. Whilst the study concluded that it is too early as yet for the Executive to intervene on the supply-side on second and third generation broadband, the report recommends the Executive to minimise barriers to network investment and ensure that Scottish businesses are well informed regarding the opportunities from broadband-enabled ICT.