"Where old school communications was about providing voice for everyone, broadband should be about enabling multimedia communications," he said.

"We are in a generation where communications should be defined by multimedia. So shouldn"t we be aiming for 100 percent [connectivity]?," Kranenburg said.

Business laps up DSL

The Broadband Barometer, which first reported on the state of broadband in Australian small to medium business in 2003, shows dial-up connectivity has dropped from 64 to 27 percent.

"DSL has taken the market by storm. It is the dominant technology," Muscat said. Overall, xDSL technologies account for 58 percent of total subscriptions with cable, which rates as the next high-speed access technology, coming in at 12 percent.

Despite all the talk about wireless Internet, it is yet to make significant inroads. Wireless and satellite services accounted for just 7 percent, largely due to the use of satellite in regional Australia.