BT has been warned it is not guaranteed to receive substantial government funding to expand its super-fast broadband infrastructure.

The telecoms giant has said it could extend fibre optic broadband to 90 per cent of UK properties if it won the £830 million of public money available to encourage future deployments.

However, culture secretary Jeremy Hunt insisted the company will not get a "blank cheque" from the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition to carry out this work, reports the Financial Times.

Mr Hunt revealed the government is hoping to see consortiums comprising telecoms firms and local authorities bidding to secure the money, in order to bring fibre to every community in the UK.

"We are talking to local authorities, people like BT, Virgin, TalkTalk [and] Sky ... to see who comes up with solutions. We will back the best ones," he explained.

This announcement comes after BT unveiled plans to bring fibre broadband to as many as 40 rural market towns in late 2011 and early 2012.

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