Government setup a new body ‘Broadband Delivery UK’ (BDUK) that would see its project ‘Universal broadband’ access for all (2Mbps) gets completed by 2012.

Along with, the new organisation established by Digital Britain would also rollout the next generation broadband services using the public funds generated from the 50P broadband tax on UK phone users.

Government’s ambitious dream of providing superfast, next generation broadband promises a coverage of 90% UK population by 2017 and the fibre deployment is likely to cost over £1bn.

Inclusion of new tax proposals in the Digital Economy Bill has already been opposed by broadband service providers like TalkTalk, users and analysts and the debate is still going on, while the opposition says they would scrap the tax if they win the forth coming general election and form the government.

The new report published today says that the government could only achieve 70% coverage by 2017 without private investments such as from service providers who have so far avoided rural Britain over the years.

The report also points out the government’s £1billion Next Generation Fund would help subsidising the cost of network in areas that do not attract private investments or in the regions where local communites come forward to invest on high-speed networks if provided with a subsidy.

Currently, the ISPs focus only on urban areas for launching faster broadband services for pure business reasons while many rural areas and communites are left behind and unable to reap the economic, health and education benefits superfast broadband offers, according to Stephen Timms, the minister of Digital Britain.

“We do not want to risk the digital gap widening, which is why we have put a team of experts in place to ensure further investment is targeted at those people without adequate access.” he added.