ITWire

Among large businesses (more than 200 employees) the figure is much higher, 42 percent. It drops to 36 percent for medium businesses (20-199 employees) and to 29 percent for those with five to 19 employees, leading to an average of 29 percent across all businesses surveyed.

Despite the fact that the biggest bandwidth improvements from the NBN are likely to come in regional and rural areas, Roy Morgan found that businesses headquartered in capital cities had a greater expectation of being able to benefit from the NBN than those located in the rest of the state or territory - an average of 30 percent across all sizes of businesses versus 20 percent.

Andrew Braun, mobile, internet & technology industry director at Roy Morgan Research, said: "The government and industry still have a great challenge in educating and persuading more than two thirds of Australian businesses on how the NBN will benefit their business, as most see little more than the main benefit of the NBN as simply 'faster Internet speed'.

"Obviously 'faster Internet speed' is not a benefit to businesses in its own right, so the business community, particularly small businesses, will need to be convinced as to how faster speeds can equate to real benefits to their business."