Dr Frank Shaw says fibre broadband will be essential by 2027

Fibre optic broadband technology will become "absolutely essential" in the coming years, according to Dr Frank Shaw, one of Time magazine's ten most influential thinkers in the world.

Dr Shaw is director of foresight at the Centre for Future Studies (CFS), which has teamed up with Plusnet to compile a report about the huge role the web will play in daily life in 2027 to mark the internet service provider's 15th birthday.

"The whole area of broadband speed and fibre optic broadband will be one of the big challenges of the future, as we will need faster broadband to handle the huge amounts of data used," explained Dr Shaw, lead author of the report.

Consequently, he claimed organisations such as Plusnet will be "essential" in the future.

The CFS chief's predictions echo those from Cisco, which claimed annual global IP traffic will reach 966 exabytes - almost one zettabyte - by 2015, with online video set to act as a major driver.

According to Cisco, internet users across the world will rack up a combined three trillion internet video minutes every month in three years' time.