Conference Centres Invited to Bid on £250K for UK Full Fibre Upgrades

A couple of months ago we reported that the Government’s new tourism sector deal would make £250,000 available to help boost “full fibre” broadband facilities in conference centres across the UK (here). Today a new competition has been launched that enables such centres to bid for a slice of the funding pot.

In order to be eligible, venues (i.e. event venues with conference facilities, including hotels and event centres) must have capacity for more than 400 delegates, have hosted at least one international event in the last year where a third of attendees were from outside the UK (it’s not always easy to prove that one), or be able to demonstrate plans to do so in the next year.

The Government envisages that the winners will then “upgrade their existing connectivity to full fibre broadband,” which in turn could enable them to “attract more international business events.” Why is this important, you ask? In 2017, the UK hosted 592 international association meetings with business visitors making up almost a quarter of the 38 million visits to the UK in 2018 and providing a boost to visitor numbers during the off-peak season.

The sector is currently said to be worth £32.6bn to the UK economy (ironically that’s about the same as Openreach’s estimate for achieving universal FTTP coverage) and delegates to these meetings spent a total of £4.5bn, with more than half returning later as leisure visitors. On an ordinary day £250,000 might thus seem like just a drop in the ocean but in this context it could in theory make a bigger impact than you might expect.

Rebecca Pow, Tourism Minister, said:

“We want the UK to attract the biggest and best international business events to help grow our economy and encourage trade and investment. Ensuring our conference facilities can deliver the connectivity and facilities organisers want and need is crucial to help achieve this and there is a great deal of scope to expand this area.

Our Tourism Sector Deal is providing a broadband boost to the country’s business events industry, and I would encourage all eligible venues to apply.”

Michael Hirst, Chair of the Events Industry Board, said:

“The business events industry welcomes the UK government’s new £250,000 competition to improve broadband connectivity in event venues. This is a strong recognition of the importance of helping to support the growth of first class infrastructure in Britain’s large range of diverse world class business event facilities. It will help immensely in continuing to present Britain as a leading global destination for business events.”

One slight oddity with all this is that it crosses swords a little with the existing Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS), which we’re told has already boosted the broadband capacity at more than 60 hotels (most of those will have upgraded to a full fibre / FTTP or leased line style service). We have asked if bids under the above fund can be combined with applications for GBVS grants in order to potentially install a better service and will report back later this morning.

At the end of the day this is all just a sideshow to the main event, which is occurring behind the scenes as the Government tries to figure out just how on earth they’re going to deliver on Boris Johnson’s radical pledge to make “full fibre” (FTTP) broadband available to every home by the end of 2025 (here). The answer to that is expected this autumn as part of the new National Infrastructure Strategy (here).

Further details..
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/broadband-competition-for-event-venues