New Grant Opens to Boost Broadband in South Herefordshire

The Fastershire broadband project is starting to make a new Digital Household Grant (DHG) available to homes in some rural parts of South Herefordshire (i.e. those that were originally due to receive FTTP broadband via UK ISP Gigaclear), which will enable them to help cover the installation cost of an “interim broadband solution.”

The new grant stems from last year’s problem with Gigaclear’s contract under the state aid supported Fastershire scheme, which saw the ISP admit that 2,324 of the planned premises for their state aid fuelled rollout of a new gigabit broadband (FTTP) network in the South of Herefordshire were simply too expensive to reach (here) – costing around £14m (based on an average of £6,000 per premises passed).

In response, the 2,324 premises in the south were de-scoped so that they would instead form part of the Government’s new £5bn Project Gigabit rollout programme (here), but it could be awhile before the build under that programme finally begins in the county.

However, as an interim solution for the aforementioned premises, the local authority designed a special “grant” scheme (Digital Household Grant) and feedback suggests that this has now opened up to applications (credits to Peter for spotting). Homes in this area must currently also receive less than 30Mbps “broadband speeds” in order to be eligible (they mean download speeds).

DHG Description

Funded by Herefordshire Council, the grant will cover the installation of 4G connection using an external antenna fitted to the outside of the property. In areas where a 4G connection proven to be unavailable, then the grant will look to fund an effective satellite solution.

Whilst the installation cost will be funded by the grant the ongoing monthly subscription or service charges will be covered by the applicant (as with any of the Fastershire programme).

The DHG page is surprisingly light on detail, with no mention of what suppliers are supporting the grant (a relevant point as not all satellite and 4G solutions are created equal) or how big the grant itself is. However, we did find a related tender notice (here), which oddly puts the value of the “2 year” supplier contract at between “£1-£360K” – this may reflect some uncertainty over take-up.

The application process is similarly basic and merely involves sending an email with some personal details (name, address, email and telephone number). After that, the Fastershire team will respond to confirm eligibility and then a supplier will contact the applicant to arrange a site survey. Successful applicants will be offered a service option, which they can either accept or decline.

We should add that the tender deadline is put as 13th March 2022, with delivery expected by 5th April 2022, which may give some indication of how long early applicants will have to wait until service delivery or survey.

UPDATE 11:01am

We haven’t had this officially confirmed yet, but sources suggest that the grant does not, at present, cover the cost of installing a geostationary satellite system due to concerns about service quality (we do see this being supported by a fair bit of consumer feedback). The focus thus seems to be on Starlink (SpaceX), which uses Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites.