Uptake Surge as 24,000 Small UK Firms Take Superfast Broadband Vouchers

The national UK Connection Voucher scheme, which offers grants worth up to £3,000 to help SME businesses get a superfast broadband (30Mbps+) connection installed, has seen a massive surge in interest with 24,000 businesses now taking one. But the money could run out by the end of 2015.

The original voucher scheme was supported by around £100m from the Urban Broadband Fund (“Super-Connected Cities“), although last year saw this budget being increased by £40m and from April 2015 a total of 50 cities, including many outlying areas that had previously been excluded, became able to offer the vouchers.

Connection Voucher Cities

Existing cities in which the voucher scheme is already operating:

Aberdeen, Belfast, Birmingham, Bradford, Brighton & Hove, Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Coventry, Derby, Derry / Londonderry, Edinburgh, Leeds, London , Manchester, Newcastle, Newport, Oxford, Perth, Portsmouth, Salford, York.

New cities in which the voucher scheme will be offered from April 1, 2015:

Bournemouth, Chelmsford, Dundee, Exeter, Glasgow, Gloucester, Hull, Inverness, Ipswich, Leicester, Liverpool, Middlesbrough, Milton Keynes, Norwich, Nottingham, Peterborough, Plymouth, Preston, Reading, Sheffield, Southampton, Southend on Sea, Stirling, Stoke on Trent, Sunderland, Swansea, Swindon, Wolverhampton

Suffice to say that after a slow start the extended availability and greater publicity appears to be finally having an impact. As such the funding may even run dry before the scheme is officially expected to close (March 2016).

Ed Vaizey MP, Communications Minister, said:

“The super connected cities vouchers scheme has now taken off like a rocket, with 24,000 businesses now benefiting. In fact, we are going to spend the money by the end of this year.”

The investment had originally been intended to help upgrade general broadband infrastructure in 22 UK cities, although EU state aid rules (here) and legal challenges by BT and Virgin Media ended up making that difficult and so the voucher scheme was born.

The figure of 24,000 is up sharply from the 15,000+ recorded around April 2015, when it was estimated that the average value per voucher stood at roughly £2,000.