Michael Eaton is working furiously to make himself redundant.

The programme director for Broadband Wales explained that his role - which began a year ago and runs to March 2007 - is a temporary one to correct a flaw in the market for broadband.

"Back in 2002 Wales was facing a situation where, on the supply side, large parts of the country did not look commercially attractive for providers to invest in the necessary infrastructure.

"Coverage was standing at just 30 per cent.

"On the demand side, there was an issue on how big the take-up was going to be through low awareness of the benefits of broadband." It would be hard to find a man better qualified for the job of turning the situation around.

He has spent the last 20 years in the telecoms sector, many of them specifically within the Broadband sector.

Born, raised and educated to degree standard in engineering in Brighton, Mr Eaton joined Sir Terry Matthews' Newbridge Networks in 1988, when it was a small company with prospects, employing just 50 people. He left 12 years later, when there it was, a public company employing 7,000 people and earning revenues of $1.5 billion.

"I ran a number of business units, including all the broadband technology areas."

He said the term broadband has been around for about two decades, but its implications were constantly changing.

"I like to look at technology in a very simple way: how do you solve business problems with it and how do you make money out of these solutions?"

Back in 2002 people like Assembly Economic Development Minister Andrew Davies was concerned that if Wales was left behind in the broadband race it would seriously damage the country's competitive base.

"Hence the intervention programme, but Wales is not alone in this, I've got counterparts all over the world."

Mr Eaton is used to rapid change, and in the two years since Broadband Wales was mooted, coverage in Wales has shot up to 80 per cent, and could be 95 per cent by the summer of 2005.

"Several factors have conspired to achieve this: the telecoms industry is more buoyant now, and elements of the marketplace have been good at demonstrating a potential demand."

Mr Eaton was thinking in particular of the lobby groups who helped communities across Wales to attain BT's trigger levels for the enabling of exchanges.

In fact, in April this year BT decided to abandon the trigger mechanism and commit itself to enabling all its exchanges where there was any chance of making a return on its investment.

"They saw this as more logical than rolling out Broadband in a piecemeal fashion."

But that leaves 35 exchanges which will never be upgraded. As you might expect, these are in rural areas where there are 100 sheep for every potential broadband user.

The obvious solution is satellite. Business Argus recently profiled the engineer Mark Jones, of Caerwent, who is installing residential dishes for about £250.

Mr Eaton acknowledged the expediency of satellite and admitted that for many it was the perfect solution.

But he said: "There is still a price disparity. Via satellite a 512 kbps service costs about £29.99 per month, compared with about £15.99 for the cheapest exchange-based service."

He's very eager to help community-based initiatives setting up wireless networks. These start with a big satellite dish and then network the village using radio waves.

He's also open to giving incentives to major providers to tackle the gaps in the network, but has to tread carefully as the programme cannot favour any particular company.

He's also wary of using public money to finance an infrastructure roll-out only to see the operator pull out of its provision after a few years. "Whichever path we go down it has to be sustainable."

His organisation, which numbers 50 people drawn from the civil service and the private sector, has recently conducted research through NOP, and found broadband has a 13 per cent take-up across the board and an 18 per cent take-up by small and medium-sized businesses.

"That's not too far behind the West Europe average (where the figures are 15 per cent and 25 per cent respectively)."

The speed of change has prompted a major review of Broadband Wales' goals, and this autumn Andrew Davies will be announcing exactly where the goalposts are being moved to.

Mr Eaton's work is also being affected by the new 'super regulator' Ofcom, which polices communication network suppliers like BT and ntl and content suppliers (like this newspaper, for example).

"Ofcom is conducting a complete review, which hasn't been done for 13 years, and it's already having an effect on prices."

Mr Eaton has plenty of ideas of his own on how broadband is likely to develop.

"As people get more used to it they will stretch the service more. "For example, the I-tunes site has got teenagers sharing music files, and the spread of digital cameras has resulted in people sending much bigger image files to their friends and families.

"At present broadband is predicated on the need to receive large amounts of data and we're downloading a lot faster than sending (at 512 kbps/sec compared to 256 kbps/sec).

"In the future, if we're sending a lot more material this balance will have to change.

"Fortunately there are developments in the technology pipeline to help deal with this, such as new ways of compression."

Broadband Wales has a number of schemes to improve access on micro level. The network of free ICT centres or "try-before-you-buy centres" as Mr Eaton calls them, have seeded the Broadband concept while teaching a range of computer skills.

The broadband support scheme allows small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) and voluntary organisations to claim 50 per cent support on the first year costs of acquiring Broadband, up to a ceiling of £3,000.

"Around 400 SMEs have taken advantage of this and the average claim is £750.

"Initially it was for satellite-only systems, but we recently changed it to all technology platforms and since then the number of applications has been increasing."

Mr Eaton is enjoying his adventure in the public sector and likes the idea of contributing something to his adopted home of Wales (he lives near Chepstow, has two children and wants to stay put.)

But he has no idea of what he'll be doing when the Broadband Wales programme ends in 2002.

"I'm used to working in an environment of constant change where you don't know how things will be in six months' time let alone three-years. "But I find change stimulating so whatever happens, I'm looking forward to it."