The Government's broadband advisor has issued a report suggesting the the UK should adopt a cautious approach to the rollout of next-generation broadband technology.

In its new report, A Framework for Evaluating the Value of Next-Generation Broadband, the Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG) concludes that although super high-speed broadband will deliver economic benefits, "there are unlikely to be significant costs associated with delayed deployment and there may actually be significant value in waiting".

Nevertheless, the BSG warned that the UK will be at a significant disadvantage if the rollout of next-generation broadband were to be delayed by five to ten years.

The report notes that there is "limited opportunity" for delivering super-fast broadband using existing copper infrastructure. But given the current economic climate, the BSG also noted that telecoms providers may prefer to delay the deployment of optical fibre networks until the cost benefits of doing so are more apparent.

The BSG estimates that it will cost in the region of £16 bn for a UK-wide fibre rollout.

The BSG suggested that the costs of running a fibre network could be between 30 per cent and 50 per cent lower than running a copper-based network.