Expectations are running high after the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR), announced the launch of Lord Carter's Digital Britain report tomorrow, Thursday 29 January.

Lord Carter will brief media at the BERR conference centre in Victoria, London, timed to coincide with culture secretary Andy Burnham’s presentation to MPs in Parliament.

The eagerly awaited report is expected to set out the changes required to give UK citizens universal broadband access, and also a much faster version than that currently obtainable using the UK's copper network infrastructure. This would require broadband access using optical fibre either to the local street cabinet or directly into residential buildings.

Minister for communications, technology and broadcasting Lord Carter is already on record as calling for a Europe-wide initiative to give citizens universal access to broadband, urging Europe to "metaphorically, and also perhaps literally, consider digging or at least opening up the trenches for universal access for broadband".

Recently the government has intimated that perhaps it might be prepared to put much more public money behind next-generation access using fibre connections, contrary to the findings of the earlier Caio report, which laid the emphasis for investment on the private sector.