Following the Digital Britain Summit - the high point of which from my reading was Peter Mandelson not ruling out public sector intervention (whoop di doo!) - the main fallout seems to be the increasing realisation that BT is simply not up to the job.

This succinct post from the ever-incisive Benoit Felten, quite possibly the singly most informed person in Europe about the developing next-generation marketplace, really hits the nail on the head for me. BT are at best reluctant to deploy fibre across the UK. Even with the favourable wind recently given by Ofcom, BT can't afford the investment. Local authorities with vision and the guts to back it are building networks, and community-led projects such as www.colnevalleyfibre.net are moving ahead across the country with varying degrees of success.

All of which is rather pleasing, as it must surely mean the beginning of a new era for the UK telecoms industry, and a better deal for consumers. Now all we need is some action on funding to enable the new patchwork of networks to be built. Who knows what next week's budget may bring? (I'm not holding my breath.)

Also a recent survey confirms what most of us had already assumed. This article on ISP Review reports that a survey by www.moneysupermarket.com shows that more than half of us agree that the proposed 2Mbps universal broadband service will not be fast enough for today's services, so in terms of putting the UK in a leadership position in terms of digital infrastructure by 2012, there doesn't seem to be much chance of that happening. Back to the drawing board please, Stephen Carter.