Critics claiming wireless is all we'll need are living in the past.

An enduring characteristic of human nature is our inability to understand and accept the rate of technological change and its impact on society. In 1876, William Preece, chief engineer of the British Post Office, said: ''The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys''; and in 1943, the chairman of IBM famously said: ''I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.''

It is easy to laugh at these comments and dismiss those who said them as relics of the past. But a similar array of laughable throwaway comments pervade the public debate on the planned fibre-to-the-premises national broadband network.

Building a broadband network will, as the government has pointed out, have the same kind of transformational impact as the railways in the 19th and 20th centuries. But doubters and naysayers seem intent on living in the past, ignoring the fact that the information age has only just begun, and broadband technologies are poised to transform society in ways that we don't yet fully understand.

Only a few years ago, many people were perfectly happy with incredibly slow dial-up modems. And in some Asian countries, internet users are now demanding speeds that only fibre can provide.