Progress Update on the Broadband Voucher Schemes in Wales

The Welsh Government has confirmed to ISPreview.co.uk that since 2016 they’ve offered funding to 3,300 individual applicants under the Access Broadband Cymru (ABC) and Ultrafast Connectivity Voucher (UCV) schemes, with 1,700 of those taking advantage of the offer to improve their broadband (total of £1.2m provided).

As a quick recap. The Access Broadband Cymru scheme offers funding to help deliver a step change in broadband speed (i.e. at least double your current download speeds) and the amount available depends on the speed of the new connection (e.g. £400 for 10Mbps+ or £800 for 30Mbps+). This is targeted at slow speed areas that have yet to benefit from the original Superfast Cymru project with Openreach (BT).

Meanwhile the Ultrafast Connectivity Voucher scheme provides up to £10,000 to help fund (or part-fund) the installation costs of new “ultrafast” (100Mbps+) connections for businesses in Wales. Both schemes are currently under review as part of the WG’s new superfast broadband project and we’re expecting an important update on that to be published early next week (here).

We should add that a recent Freedom of Information (FoI) request by one of our readers (David) has revealed that 84 of the ABC offer letters were issued related to the Community Fibre Partnership (CFP) programme from Openreach, which helps digitally isolated communities to co-fund new FTTC or FTTP deployments. But so far only 6 actual payments have been made to those applicants. Furthermore it’s noted that 5 related communities have made a coordinated application and 1 of those has received a payment.

Judging the impact of all this is difficult, not least because we don’t know how many premises have benefited, what sort of technology splits are involved (how many via satellite, wireless, FTTC/P etc.) or how much private investment has been attracted into the effort.

Equally we reported earlier this year that some people were finding it painfully slow to get funding through ABC (here), while others have complained of delays in getting installation quotes back from Openreach and other network operators. In fairness building new networks and dealing with regional governments is often a slow process.

The Welsh Government has suggested that they could make changes to one or both schemes when the Phase 2 roll-out contract is unveiled next week.