The increased demand for high-bandwidth services, such as internet TV, is likely to place such strain on the telecommunications infrastructure that new ways of increasing capacity need to be explored as a matter of priority, Ofcom has said.

Services such as the video-sharing site YouTube and the BBC iPlayer, which allows users to download shows after they have been broadcast, take up vast amounts of bandwidth compared with text and image-based sites. Their popularity means that new ways must be found to cope with demand, the regulator said, such as piggy-backing new cables on the electricity grid.

Ofcom was responding to reports earlier this week that internet service providers had criticised services such as the iPlayer. A spokeswoman for Tiscali said that they were being launched "without proper attention to the cost of delivery" and would place an unfair financial burden on broadband providers.

"There's starting to be pressure for much for much higher bandwidths, so that now 'contention issues' arise for consumers," an Ofcom spokeswoman said. "It's the right time to be examining whether there may be a role for utility companies, who could potentially offer their infrastructure as a way of laying out new fibre-optic cables."

Draping fibre-optic cables along power lines is cheaper than laying such cables underground, and has been employed successfully as a way of increasing network capacity in several countries, including France.

Ofcom said it would begin a consultation process in the Autumn investigating ways to develop the UK's existing telecoms infrastructure, with a statement on how to proceed expected in Spring next year.

A spokesman for the Energy Networks Association (ENA), the industry body, said that sections of the high voltage network were already laid with telecommunications cables, which were used by power companies for their core business, but that there was spare capacity which could be rented out.

There were also a lot of medium voltage lines that were overhead and which had scope to have fibre optic cables laid along them, he said.

EDF, the energy provider, said it was not "actively involved" in any plans to deliver broadband services via its infrastructure. Both Orange and O2 declined to comment.

The prospect of using utility companies' infrastructure to distribute broadband services in the UK was raised as two US providers announced they were to begin rolling out a separate technology, called 'broadband over power line' (BPL) at the end of the year.

DirecTv, the satellite television firm, announced it would begin selling a bundle of services, including those of Current, a broadband and internet-based phone service provider, to be delivered via power lines.

BPL, which involves sending a broadband signal along electricity cables rather than the telephone wires that host the DSL network, has been discussed for several years, and was called "the great broadband hope" for rural America in 2004 by the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

The technology has been the subject of trials in the UK - the largest having been conducted by Scottish and Southern two years ago, but there have been serveral problems, including getting the signal to travel long distances, as well as interference with radio transmission.

"Power companies are looking very seriously at this, and it will come," John Ryan, a consultant with the ENA, said: "It's just a question of whether it can compete on cost with existing broadband technologies, such as DSL and cable."

DirecTV said its BPL broadband service would be available to customers in Dallas at the end of the year or in early 2008.

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