The year-long study, "Fat Pipes, Connected People," was produced jointly by The Work Foundation, which aims to improve productivity and the quality of working in the UK, and the Broadband Stakeholder Group, the Government's key advisory group on broadband.
It found that ordinary people are confused and angry about internet issues like spam and spyware, porn and pop-ups, viruses and the safety of chat rooms for children.
According to the report, Britain is still in sixth place in the G7 countries in terms of broadband take-up (behind USA, Japan, Germany, France and Canada, but ahead of Italy).
Research published yesterday by the Office for National Statistics shows that even in the business community the take-up was only 14% in 2002. (It also found that 29% of UK businesses had a web site in 2002, and 4% of businesses were selling on-line.)
There are worrying signs that a recent rise in cable subscriptions has already stalled, says the report. Most of the people who really wanted broadband have now got it, meaning the industry must now appeal to a new group of people that the report labels the "everyday user".
What these people need, says the report, is support – and this is what the industry fails to provide. They need support when things go wrong, and they need support to get the best out of the net.
In addition, the industry has misunderstood what the everyday user actually wants out of the internet. Up to now the industry has been advertising the speed and always-on benefits of broadband as its main selling points, but this, says the report, is wrong.
To the average person broadband is not about speed, but about having an easy time on-line. Equally, broadband is not always on, because most people turn off their computers when they aren't using them.
Nor do people use broadband to absorb "rich media content". Instead, says the report, people like broadband because it allows you to communicate with other people, creating and sharing content while you do so.