High-speed or "broadband" access to the internet has recently been looking like a dream that would never become everyday reality. For over 15 years, experts have been singing the praises of fast 24-hour access to the internet but progress has been stalled by a classic chicken-and-egg difficulty. People would not buy fast links because they could not see what new services would run on them; manufacturers would not commit vast sums to build a fast link to the home until they could see services that they could sell at a profit. The only product seen as a killer application - on-demand video - has never quite made the cut.

All that may now change with the way the attack on America has diminished the appetite for travel. Airlines may be in crisis but, meanwhile, shares in companies involved in video-conferencing are soaring. Yesterday, organisers of the forthcoming Broadband Home Conference in San Jose predicted that residential broadband "promises to be a key to global economic recovery" and should be part of George Bush's economic stimulus. With video-conferencing, broadband may have found its "killer app".

In Britain, the e-commerce minister Douglas Alexander has called on BT to exploit its investment in broadband more aggressively. That means lowering prices and giving competitors cheaper access to BT's monopoly of the final link to the home. Even BT's cable competitors like NTL and Telewest (both now experiencing a surge in demand for cable modems giving fast web access) want BT to succeed so the whole market can benefit.

The government should urgently speed up the broadband revolution. It can do this in its own sphere by implementing schemes like enabling people to interact with their doctors or nurses at home and to use the web for public tendering. Public investment in the web has suddenly become a cost-effective way of staving off the recession. The government should act immediately - at internet speed.