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The company plans to have the the first phase of all 12 deployments working by the end of March 2007. The five new cities are Sheffield, Nottingham, Portsmouth, Bristol and Glasgow, joining the seven named last year: Birmingham, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leeds, Liverpool, Cardiff and Westminster.

As well as providing Internet access to businesses and residents, the networks will enable local authorities to develop new mobile services, increase productivity for their own mobile workers and provide localised information, such as parking spaces and cinema listings.

'Many local authorities are keen to pursue the real benefits to the council, businesses and citizens that a large wireless broadband network can bring,' said Steve Andrews, BT chief, Mobility and Convergence. 'A number of local authorities are already showing they can improve productivity for their mobile workers, like environmental health officers, who would be able to take action quickly and efficiently away from the office.'