Can mobile broadband take up the slack from fixed-line and provide the widespread internet access with speeds of around 2Mbits per second that Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report wants in place by 2012? PCPro reports that T-Mobile said the government shouldn’t “pin its hopes” on mobile broadband, while Orange said they would be willing to give it a go by setting up a UK-wide broadband network - as long as they get a share of the radio spectrum owned by its larger rivals O2 and Vodafone (NYSE: VOD), according to the Guardian.co.uk.

T-Mobile said it faces the same hurdles as fixed-line providers when it comes to rolling out high-speed internet access in rural areas, namely that the cost of such an operation was “always going to be a factor.” T-Mobile’s head of internet and entertainment Richard Warmsley told PC Pro that the “next stage [of Digital Britain] is to look at the practicalities.”

But Orange, in its response to Lord Carter’s report, said it will build a network to provide such access, and share it with its rivals, as long as it gets some of the spectrum owned by O2 and Vodafone, which is close to the analogue TV signal, and thus well suited for offering broadband access in rural areas. It also wants its existing 3G license to be “extended indefinitely”. Plus, it wants new, high-frequency spectrum to be granted to the mobile phone operators, as well as some of the “digital dividend” airwaves that will become available once the analogue TV signal is switched off in 2012.