Britain has better broadband availability than any other G7 nation*, the government has announced today, although there are doubts over this claim.

Speaking at the fourth Asia-Europe Meeting on e-commerce in London's Docklands, Mike O'Brien, minister of state for energy and e-commerce stated that "The UK now has the most extensive broadband market in the G7," and that only four per cent of the UK's population is now unable to get broadband.

"We said we wanted the UK to be the best place in the world for e-business and, with broadband now available to 96 percent of households and more than six million people already subscribing, this is fast becoming a reality," he said.

However not all agree, and experts speculate that the UK is not actually leading the way in the availability of broadband internet access. Brunel University's Broadband Research Centre say the technology is likely to actually be available to much fewer homes than the government claimed.

Figures released by BT tend to agree with Mr O'Brien, with the latest statistics showing that 95 percent of UK homes and businesses are connected to one of its broadband enabled local exchanges, but BT admits that because of technical limitations 0.2 percent of those lines won't support broadband.

Also confusing the debate is the definition of 'broadband', while most people regard 512Kbps and the lower level for a high speed internet connection the government have decided that 128Kbps it the figure it is going to use in classifying broadband connection speeds.

 *The G7  members are Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, and the United States.