UK Superfast Broadband Connection Vouchers Help 14,000 Businesses

The Government’s Connection Voucher scheme, which offers grants worth up to £3,000 to help small and medium sized businesses around multiple cities across the United Kingdom to install a superfast broadband (30Mbps+) service, has so far helped 14,000 SMEs gain access to better connectivity.

The voucher scheme forms a significant part (roughly £140m) of the wider “Super-Connected Cities” initiative, which itself stems from an Urban Broadband Fund (UBF) that is being managed by the wider Broadband Delivery UK programme. The cities project has separately also helped more than 1,000 public buildings to deploy FREE WiFi.

Sajid Javid MP, Culture Secretary, said:

“It’s vital that our cities have the digital infrastructure like superfast broadband and wifi in place to deal with the demands of the digital age. Our investment has delivered a welcome boost to the local economies, and is all part of our long term economic plan.”

Until recently the vouchers were only available to firms inside 22 cities, although today they can reach 28 cities and from April 2015 the scheme will be extended to a total of 50. Furthermore the vouchers can also be extended to outlying areas, with some cities making them available to firms that exist well outside of their boundaries.

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

Last year the voucher scheme was criticised for low uptake (here), although a variety of improvements have been made since then and the fund has also been extended by one year until March 2016.

It’s sometimes easy to forget that the demand-led voucher scheme was hastily setup in 2013 after fears of network overbuilding triggered legal challenges by BT and Virgin Media (here). Europe also expressed competition concerns about putting state aid into urban areas, where the private sector should have less trouble making a case for investment (here), although the EC’s new administration has hinted that they might soon become more flexible.