“Ferocious competition” will drive down prices, the report predicts.

Meanwhile, customers will be migrating in numbers across to faster broadband connection speeds, as 90 per cent of broadband users prepare to enjoy speeds above 2Mbps by 2011, the study claims.

Last year, only a third of customers were signed up to speeds above 2Mbps.

“Competition between ISPs is likely to intensify over the next five years, and this will result in many operators supplying high-speed broadband… as part of a bundled package in hope of cross-selling other services to the customer,” commented Raj Modi, the centre’s research director.

But a separate report meanwhile suggested that British broadband users would be demanding much higher speeds in the near future.

Speeds of 20Mbps will be the minimum needed to manage the volume and type of data customers will want to access and download, the report from the Broadband Stakeholder Group warns.

The UK’s technologies infrastructure needs urgent reform to enable providers to offer customers these higher speeds within the next two years, its authors argue.

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