Digital Britain: £6 tax on all fixed phone lines to fund broadband gap

Mobile operators Vodafone and O2 have so far declined to release any of their radio spectrum to the cause, it was reported.

Andy Donaldson, principal technician at IT services firm Capgemini, said that the government needed to go further than simply promising the basic infrastructure for high speed broadband.

“The commitment to a 2Mbps universal connection speed is a short-term fix and ultimately toothless without the reassurance that contention levels will be reduced so that users actually receive what is advertised,” he said. “Those paying for 8 megabits but only receiving 900 kilobits at peak times for streamed media will be the first to point out the problems that lie ahead.”

“The network behind the broadband access network, all the way to the content source, comes into play as well [as the bandwidth to homes], and this is the crux of the issue which needs to be addressed,” added Paul Gainham at supplier Juniper Networks.

And not everyone is interested in broadband anyway, according to Chris Williams, media partner at Deloitte.

“By making high-speed broadband access widely available to consumers, there is no guarantee that it will be taken up," he told the Daily Telegraph. "Demand and willingness to pay for services varies significantly, with some segments viewing broadband as an essential utility, and other groups choosing to opt-out even if services were free."

Online entrepreneur Martha-Lane Fox has been appointed as Digital Champion, to help encourage the uptake of broadband.