The term ICT is also used to refer to the convergence of audio-visual and telephone networks with computer networks through a single cabling or link system. There are large economic incentives (huge cost savings due to elimination of the telephone network) to merge the telephone network with the computer network system using a single unified system of cabling, signal distribution and management.

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The phrase Information and Communication Technology has been used by academic researchers since the 1980s,[3] and the term ICT became popular after it was used in a report to the UK government by Dennis Stevenson in 1997[4] and in the revised National Curriculum for England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2000. But in 2012, the Royal Society recommended that the term ICT should no longer be used in British schools "as it has attracted too many negative connotations",[5] and with effect from 2014 the National Curriculum was changed to use the word computing reflecting the addition of computer programming to the curriculum.[6] A leading group of universities consider ICT to be a soft subject and advise students against studying A-level ICT, preferring instead A-level Computer Science.[7]

The money spent on IT worldwide has been most recently estimated as US $3.5 trillion and is currently growing at 5% per year – doubling every 15 years. The 2014 IT budget of US federal government is nearly $82 billion.[8] IT costs, as a percentage of corporate revenue, have grown 50% since 2002, putting a strain on IT budgets. When looking at current companies’ IT budgets, 75% are recurrent costs, used to “keep the lights on” in the IT department, and 25% are cost of new initiatives for technology development.[9]

^William Melody et al., Information and Communication Technology: Social Sciences Research and Training: A Report by the ESRC Programme on Information and Communication Technologies, ISBN 0-86226-179-1, 1986. Roger Silverstone et al., "Listening to a long conversation: an ethnographic approach to the study of information and communication technologies in the home", Cultural Studies, 5(2), pages 204-227, 1991.