The government is still considering how to allocate the £300 million that has been made available to broadband investment from the later years of the BBC licence fee, but has said that it is likely to introduce plans that aim to increase the availability of broadband to above 90 percent by 2015.

The Lords Committee also suggested that Ofcom should force current infrastructure owners to provide open access to dark fibre at the level of the cabinet, and active and passive access, together with rights to install and collocate active equipment on relevant links, at the level of the exchange.

This would allow ISPs to install infrastructure and compete on 'the last mile', rather than compete at a brand level by renting BT's infrastructure, which is the current option that is available.

There is a growing concern that the broadband delivery process that has been set up by the government has favoured incumbent BT, as a number of suppliers have pulled out of the bidding process and it is the only one to have secured funding from local authorties.

However, Hunt also hit back at this and said that the House of Lords is "wrong" if it thinks that the "sum of the government's ambitions" is just fibre to the cabinet (FTTC).