55,000 Businesses Took Broadband Connection Vouchers – UK Breakdown

Last month the Government’s Connection Voucher scheme, which gifted grants of up to £3,000 to help smaller UK businesses get a superfast broadband (30Mbps+) service installed, came to an end after funding dried up (here) and today we learn that a total of 55,000 SMEs have benefited.

The scheme, which was initially supported by around £100m from the wider Urban Broadband Fund (“Super-Connected Cities“) before being extended to March 2016 with another £40m boost, was ultimately made available to businesses that existed both in and around 50 cities across the United Kingdom.

As part of this effort the Government softened the application rules and made the vouchers much more widely available, which contributed to a significant uptake in interest. In the end the public funding was exhausted during October 2015, well ahead of the original completion date.

Ed Vaizey, Digital Economy Minister, said:

“Our Broadband Connection Voucher Scheme has been a tremendous success. More than 55,000 small businesses across the UK have taken up the offer, many of which are already seeing significant boosts to their business as a result of improved broadband speeds. We’re transforming the UK’s digital landscape, helping cities to create new jobs and attract investment to make the UK an enviable business destination.“

Overall more than 800 suppliers (broadband ISPs etc.) participated in the scheme and the vast majority (86%) of the value went to smaller suppliers rather than the big operators like BT, Virgin Media and TalkTalk. The Government also claims that businesses who have benefitted from the scheme are reporting, on average, a £1,300 per year increase in profits, with a new job being created for every four new connections (difficult to double check this).

Despite its success the scheme has been no stranger to criticism, with many feeling as if the money could have been better spent on bringing faster connectivity to rural areas. Others have also complained that it did little to improve the overall availability of super-fast broadband infrastructure.

It’s worth remembering that the voucher scheme only came about because of concerns over EU state aid rules (here). The related funding had originally been earmarked to help deploy new “ultrafast” (80-100Mbps+) broadband networks across a smaller number of major UK cities, but fears of network overbuilding triggered legal threats from BT and Virgin Media (here), which combined with the EU concerns to result in a watered down voucher scheme.

In any case it’s businesses in London that secured the most vouchers (14,545), while firms in Scotland only gobbled 2,899 and there’s a similar total for the whole of Wales (2,887). Mind you that’s not surprising as most of the main urban cities are in England.