Re: Ofcom, Comreg and other greedy regulators.
Because places in, say, areas of special scientific interest, would be destroyed trying to cable in one remote farmer.
100% is ridiculous. To be honest, this is just reasonable. "More than before, and try to catch people who have nothing at the moment" is a reasonable, achieveable requirement that doesn't mean rural planning officers are forced to allow a dirty great mast in the middle of an otherwise empty landscape just to cover Farmer John who won't pay for a broadband line and a pico-cell.
Were I in charge, my requirement would mirror this announcement (maybe a little more) but would just define the terms so strictly that you couldn't "cheat" by covering easy dead spots instead of the harder ones. I'd have a points system - so that you'd basically find it more advantageous to cable in some of the current dead-zone places but if you can't, you can make it up by covering MORE of the rural areas that have virtually nothing.
Businesses will always take the cheapest way out of what is basically a condition on doing business. Of course they will. Expect it and plan for it so that the cheapest way out achieves the most you can.
But expecting 100% coverage is a nonsense. There isn't 100% landline coverage or postal coverage let alone mobile coverage.