Business ISP WarwickNet claims to be one of the first to issue a Gigabit Broadband Voucher under the Government’s new £2m pilot, which offers vouchers worth up to £3,000 to help businesses in four parts of the UK to get a 1000Mbps+ capable broadband service installed.
The scheme, which forms part of the £200m Local Full Fibre Network (LFFN) programme, was officially launched last month (here) and is available to businesses within the pilot areas of Aberdeen (inc. Aberdeenshire), Bristol (inc. Bath and North East Somerset), Coventry (inc. Warwickshire) and the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds, Wakefield and York).
ISPreview.co.uk has been informed by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) that, in the four weeks since its launch, over 500 vouchers have already been issued to businesses. As part of this WarwickNet claims that Coventry Council have confirmed they were “first off the mark to issue a voucher for free installation of its full fibre gigabit-capable services to a local business,” at least in Warwickshire.
The Council is also said to have confirmed that take-up locally is exceeding projections and beating performance over the same time period (3 weeks) for a previous scheme in 2014.
Ben King, CEO at WarwickNet, said:
“In order for this scheme to be a success, it’s vital that suppliers get out of the starting blocks quickly so that businesses in the region can immediately start benefiting from this injection of funding. We’re in a strong position in that we have done just that and are working around the clock to help local businesses get the world class connectivity they deserve.”
Fibre broadband is the first step a business can take to future-proof their infrastructure and compete on a level playing field with companies around the UK and further afield.”
The main focus for the vouchers is on fostering installations of Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) style “full fibre” connections, although technically the vouchers can be used on any connection type so long as it has the capability to deliver Gigabit speeds. The pilot is widely expected to be rolled out across more of the UK in 2018.
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