New UK Gigabit Broadband Voucher Site Causes Headache for Suppliers

Network operators that are participating in the Government’s Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS), which is overseen by the Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency, are complaining that a newly launched supplier portal has significantly increased the admin burden they face and allegedly suffered from serious security failings.

Just to recap. The UK voucher scheme generally offers grants worth up to £4,500 for rural homes and businesses to help them get a gigabit-capable broadband (1Gbps) service installed, which is available to areas with broadband speeds of “less than 100Mbps” – assuming there are also no near-term plans for a gigabit deployment in the same area (either via commercial or state aid supported builds). Some Local Authorities (LA) have also provided top-up funding to boost the voucher values, enabling them to reach some increasingly remote areas.

Until recently, registered suppliers (broadband network operators) to this scheme needed to use a simplified WordPress (Content Management System) based platform to set-up projects and process vouchers, among other things. The old portal was far from ideal and there has long been calls for an improvement, although operators have otherwise learnt to deal with (or tolerate) its many quirks and annoyances.

However, BDUK recently introduced a new supplier portal (between December and January), which does away with the old system. But far from improving upon the old system, suppliers have instead been complaining to ISPreview.co.uk about its many shortcomings. As one official is claimed to have told suppliers, it was expressed as being a “minimum viable product” (i.e. lacking polish and key features).

Brief Summary of the Key Complaints

– Not user-friendly or intuitive (i.e. it’s overcomplicated vs the previously limited, but simple, WordPress based system).

– Significantly increases the admin workload for network operators (e.g. even simple stuff, like requesting a voucher, is much more complicated than before).

– Lack of adequate documentation from BDUK on API and other changes.

– Various bugs.

– Various security concerns, some of which appear to be significant.

Just to elaborate a bit on the issue of workload. Under the old WordPress system, suppliers would simply have to click request, enter a project and post code (address), fill in the customer details and it then displayed the voucher number. Easy enough.

By comparison, under the new system, you first have to find the project (listed by Project ID) – there’s no description column, so they end up clicking into lots of entries to find it – request the voucher, download a spreadsheet, fill in the columns, upload the spreadsheet, check eligibility (on every request), go through the info. again, verify it, submit it, and then you have to hunt for the voucher number it just generated in another screen (since the end of the process would otherwise just say “done“). It could be better.

As for the security concerns, there are several, but one stands out. For example, competing suppliers found they were able to access the confidential details of other operators by using the portal’s search tool in a certain way. BDUK has allegedly also been routinely sending out emails to suppliers using the unencrypted CC instead of encrypted BCC field, thus divulging employee contacts to other operators. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) may well be getting some complaints.

A Government (DSIT) spokesperson said:

“This new platform for the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme was recently improved and relaunched following feedback from suppliers and extensive user testing.

Any issues identified have now been resolved and BDUK will continue to refine the site, including further enhancements scheduled for the Spring.”

Naturally, it’s not uncommon to have teething problems when a new system is introduced, and it’s good to hear that BDUK may have already fixed many of the issues raised, although we’re not convinced they’ve resolved all of them (complaints were still coming in only two days ago). In any case, there’s clearly a bit more work left to do before the new system is able to gain a positive reaction from the majority of suppliers.

For its part, BDUK pointed out that all suppliers were offered training and supported to use the new platform when it launched (there was apparently extensive user testing with a group of suppliers pre-launch). The portal also makes it easier for the government to ensure an auditable, manageable and compliant process is followed, thus hopefully safeguarding taxpayers’ money and ensuring value for investment.

More than 114,000 vouchers have been issued so far under the GBVS and its previous iterations. To date, 84,000 of these vouchers have been used to connect premises to gigabit-capable broadband. Since the start of the year, more than 2,800 vouchers have been validated using the new portal, a thousand more than were validated in December 2022.