Pierre Danon, BT Retail's chief executive, recently described how BT will expand its UK broadband coverage to 100 percent of the population by 2005, by stimulating local demand, setting up partnerships and using wireless technology in areas that wired systems do not reach.

This is great news for people in rural areas who worry that their businesses are suffering restricted growth through being cut off from broadband services.

But Danon's statement must be taken with a pinch of salt - 2005 is only 10 months away and there is an enormous amount of work for BT to do before then. Many technical, logistical and financial obstacles must be overcome first.

BT is certainly capable of stimulating demand in local areas, having already been very successful in recruiting hundreds of local champions to do its marketing. This process will no doubt continue, and we will see many more local telephone exchanges upgraded to DSL as a result.

In localities where broadband demand is low, BT will continue to seek financial contributions to assist with the roll-out. The carrier has said that the deployment of wireless infrastructure in particular requires partnerships with the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) and other public-sector bodies, which indicates that central and local government will be expected to stump up the cash.

I understand that the government wants broadband services to be universally available across the UK, but why should the taxpayer have to subsidise BT's business to make it happen? Using public funding to build basic infrastructure is not necessarily a bad idea, but I question whether this is the best use of the money.

If I were doling out the loot I would make sure that there were strings attached by insisting that any technologies funded from the public purse would be capable of coping with future, as well as present, user demands.

For example, wireless systems would have to be able to deliver at least 10Mbit/s, while wired systems would have to be designed so that they could be upgraded to, rather than replaced by, fibre-based systems.

And why should the allocation of funding be restricted to BT alone? There are many other UK telecommunications operators who would be only too pleased to receive public money to help expand their network infrastructure and gain more customers.

I would much prefer that adequate broadband coverage be stimulated by free market conditions, rather than legislation or other state intervention, but if we must have public funding, make it available to all the operators.