Broadband will add more than $100 billion to the Australian economy over the next 10-15 years, says a new report by Paul Budde's BuddeCom ­ but it warns Australia is still trailing two years behind penetration levels in Europe and Asia, and growth rates are slowing.

Because the rest of the world is progressing much faster, Australia is losing out on competitive advantage, Budde says in the report titled 2008 Australia ­ Broadband Market ­ Overview and Statistics

Furthermore, according to Budde, Australian people are missing out on important lifestyle improvements, including home healthcare systems. The problem, the report says is not so much technology as affordability: the price of ADSL2+ is too high for 60 percent of current broadband users.

"After having struggled for nearly a decade to get ULL implemented, it is rather ironic that the Government has now proposed to close this level of competition with its National Broadband Network request for proposal," the report says,

"Without any structural changes proposed under the RFP either, it is very much in Telstra's interest to build as quickly as possible a new monopoly, this time based on FttN."

The report says Australia's current ULL and DSLAM infrastructure will become obsolete once the FttN network is in place, though the copper network will linger on in regional areas.

Budde forecasts about 90 percent of Australia's national network could be upgraded via FttN by 2018 ­ the remainder of the national network will have to be serviced by wireless and satellite access providers.

BuddeCom says the Australian market for broadband is already beginning to approach a natural subscriber ceiling of around 7 million. Subscriber growth started to slow in 2007, and will taper off further by 2010. The report is available from www.budde.com.au for $795.