The Government's £100m for city fibre has been slammed by rural critics accusing them of wasting broadband funds by investing more money into fibre networks in ten major cities.

The UK has slower wireless broadband networks than Uzbekistan and Mongolia, according to Wireless Intelligence, an analytical arm of the GSM Association.

While regulator Ofcom and network carriers ponder how to move Britain onto 4G LTE services, with arrival not expected until 2014 at the earliest, smartphone surfers in Uzbekistan, Poland and other countries are already using commercial rollouts of the technology.

Chancellor George Osborne ditched the 50p broadband tax, calling it "archaic".

Proposed by Labour last year, the tax would have charged everyone with a landline an extra 50p a month to help fund the roll out of broadband across the UK.

In keeping with previously made promises to scrap the tax, Osborne said the "landline duty is an archaic way of doing this".

Ofcom, the toothless UK government quango, has admitted that ISPs are routinely flouting its Voluntary Code of Practice on Broadband Speeds.

Under the terms of the code - which came into effect in December 2008 - ISPs are meant to provide customers with an estimate of their maximum line speed at the point of purchase.

However, a mystery shopping exercise conducted by the regulator shows that ISPs are often failing to volunteer the information. Eighty five per cent of Ofcom's mystery shoppers were provided with an estimate of their line speed, but the shoppers had to prompt the salesperson in 42% of those cases, which means less than half of broadband providers are volunteering the required information.