Openreach Boosts UK Community Fibre Broadband Grants to £30,000

Openreach (BT) has announced that 160 homes at two villages in Devon (Hockworthy and Holcombe Rogus) have become the first to benefit from a boost to grant funding under the operator’s Community Fibre Partnerships scheme, which works with locals to roll-out new “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) networks.

The programme is designed to help communities in the final 5% or so of the United Kingdom, specifically those that have yet to benefit from a faster “fibre broadband” service (urban or rural). The setup is based around a joint funding arrangement, where Openreach covers the costs in line with their commercial model and the community then self-funds the remaining gap.

Communities can sometimes also make use of government subsidies (e.g. the Better Broadband Subsidy Scheme) in order to help bring down the cost, while some local authorities may similarly chip in with their own grants (example). Until recently Openreach also offered grants worth up to £20,000 to help, which could be used in areas where the new technology would benefit a “local school or similar organisation.”

The good news is that the operator recently increased their additional grant funding from £20,000 to £30,000 until 30th September, which makes it a lot cheaper than before to get upgraded. For example, in the Devon scheme over £26,000 was awarded towards the cost of making faster FTTC available to the local school – Webbers Church of England Primary School in Holcombe Rogus – and the two villages (2 x new VDSL2 cabinets). Sadly we don’t know the total deployment cost but it’s probably north of £30k.

Steve Haines, Openreach MD of NGA, said:

“We’ve already made fibre broadband available to more than two million homes and businesses across the South West thanks to our own private investment and partnerships with the public sector and local communities – and we are determined to go much further. Recent improvements to the Community Fibre Partnerships programme have included increasing the maximum grant available to £30,000.

This exciting technology is providing a vital boost for households and businesses across the region because whatever you do online you can do it better with faster broadband.”

So far 334 similar Community Fibre contracts have been signed (up from 200 earlier this year) and tens of thousands of premises are already benefitting, with more set to follow. Apparently Openreach’s roll-out to the Devon villages will complete in 2018.