There is anger and frustration in some parts of the Westcountry after the target deadline for "superfast" broadband slipped by a year, a business leader has said.
The Government's national roll-out programme to rural areas is about two years behind its original schedule, a report by the National Audit Office has found. The study said only nine of 44 rural areas would reach targets to install high-speed internet in 90% of premises by 2015, and four areas could also miss a revised 2017 target.
In Cornwall, which is outside the UK state programme, 95% of premises are set to be connected to fibre optic broadband next year – 5% more hook-ups and one year ahead of target.
But in Devon and Somerset, where a £94 million scheme is under way, run by the two county councils, BT and the Government's Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) programme, the target remains the end of 2016.
Tim Jones, chairman of the Devon and Somerset local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), said the delay was "massively frustrating" for the businesses who had made plans based on the target.
"A lot of people are passing the parcel of blame at the moment – it has gone wrong at a number of levels but we need to put the blame behind us and get on with delivering the programme," he added. "The innocent victims have been the rural businesses who made decisions on the back of promises and there is a lot of anger."
In 2011, then culture secretary Jeremy Hunt announced that 90% of premises in every local authority area of the UK should have access to internet speeds above 24 megabits per second by May 2015 and a minimum of 2Mbps for the remaining areas. To do this he pledged £530 million of cash for rural broadband projects which would become available to councils if they also provided funds.
Last week the Treasury revised its target, saying it now wanted 95% of UK properties to have access to superfast broadband by the end of 2017.
Cornwall's £132 million partnership between the European Union, BT and Cornwall Council, has connected 70% of premises to fibre-optic broadband already.
The £94 million Connecting Devon and Somerset partnership – the largest project of its kind in England – won around £32 million from the BDUK programme.
Devon and Somerset county councils will contribute £10 million each and BT is set to invest £41 million.
Connecting Devon and Somerset argues that its deadline was always 2016.
David Hall, deputy leader of Somerset County Council, said: "With our complex geography it's a huge engineering challenge.
"We are very much on track to meet our target," he added.
