Lord Carter, the government's communications minister, is meeting the UK's five major mobile operators to try and ensure that universal broadband is in place by 2012.

Carter is pushing for Vodafone and O2, the UK's two biggest networks, to give up some of the spectrum they were given in the 1980s to T-Mobile, 3 and Orange.

Vodafone and O2 are currently unwilling to share with the other networks the 900Mhz spectrum, as it currently gives them a competitive advantage in terms of network coverage.