Quarter of people 'cannot live without broadband'

High-speed broadband is the one technology people say they can't live without, according to a new poll.

Research by Zogby International showed 28 per cent of US adults named super-fast internet as the most important application to them, ten percentage points ahead of second-placed email.

Social networking site Facebook, meanwhile, was chosen by just three per cent of respondents as the one service they could not live without.

In terms of the technologies which have had the greatest impact over the past decade, high-speed online access was top, named by just under a quarter of respondents.

Facebook was a close second, followed by Google on ten per cent.

Looking to the future, around a quarter of people said home entertainment will be the biggest technological advancement, ahead of general computing with 16 per cent.

French industry minister Eric Besson recently said companies like Google and Facebook should contribute financially to the development of telecoms networks because their business relies so heavily on them.