Imagine a world where you don’t go to work to work; where collaborating with thousands of people you don’t know and will never meet is a regular occurrence; where a personal avatar keeps you in check and the doctor prints personalised medication remotely to a 3D printer at home.  May sound like science fiction - but this future is closer than you think.

Welcome to Generation IP:2025 by Virgin Media Business – an in-depth study carried out in conjunction with The Future Laboratory - which provides an exciting glimpse into a hyper-connected Britain in just thirteen years’ time.

The study, alongside a short film, explores the relationship between data and connectivity in 2025, how workers control their work/life balance and how citizens experience public services like healthcare.

Virgin Media Business is already seeing a huge surge in the amount of data businesses and people create and consume through a vast range of technologies. But the amount of data stored by 2025 is expected to explode to a staggering 100 zettabytes – that’s the equivalent of 36 billion years of HD video or approximately eight times the age of the Earth!

“We’re giving Britain a picture of the future where barriers to innovation and change have been well and truly broken down and the way we work, rest and play has been revolutionised”, said Mark Heraghty, managing director of Virgin Media Business. “From homes that can monitor your health, energy consumption and whether you have enough milk in the fridge through to technology under the skin which will record and play back experiences so you can feel them again, the world in 2025 will be more empowering and connected than ever before. What’s more, the infrastructure to enable the rapid transmission of that data will be vital but invisible.”

In 2012, businesses already have the opportunity to deploy a more agile and mobile workforce with fast secure networks transferring data safely and at lightning speeds. Soon, it will be time to make way for 5G self-organising networks and multi-antenna transmission arrays which will connect the UK’s cities faster than ever.

“The exciting thing is that although this is a vision of the future, we’re closer to some aspects of this technology than you might initially think,” asserts Araceli Camargo, Founder of an innovation space in Shoreditch, THECUBE. “People are already striving to work closer together and pool resources so to explore new frontiers in technology and services. This will be supercharged in the future and   Generation IP workers will be drawing on huge collaboration, crowdsourcing information in real-time and, what’s more, they’ll be able to do this whenever and wherever they like. From virtual hologram meetings in your living room through to getting that killer statistic from the connected world around you while on the move.”

Today’s Generation Y is at the forefront of a more connected, agile and effective public sector the results of which are going to change the way we interact with services for the better.

Heraghty adds, “With connected cities just around the corner, everything from education to accessing local government services will be underpinned by technology and connected by data.  Classroom lessons will draw on the consumer gaming world to engage pupils in lessons and get them absorbing information faster. Huge public screens will display data such as energy use in town squares. In the future this will massively affect the way in which business leaders will problem-solve by comparison to today. The question is how we get there as 2025 is not that far away.”

“Despite what seems today like a connectivity invasion, I truly believe that future generations have nothing to fear. The wonder of the digital future into which we are all moving is that it is incredibly empowering. It gives every one of us the tools to create the lives we’ve always wanted to live, and allows businesses to engage with each consumer on a one-to-one basis.” said Chris Sanderson, co-founder of The Future Laboratory.