Government to Expand UK Availability of Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme
Good news. The Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency will shortly announce that more areas of the United Kingdom are to be re-opened to the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS), which means that homes and businesses in poorly served areas will be able to apply for funding to help get faster internet connections installed.
The GBVS typically offers grants worth up to £4,500 to help both rural and some poorly served urban premises (homes and businesses) to get a gigabit-capable broadband (1Gbps) ISP service installed. This is available to areas with existing broadband speeds of “less than 100Mbps” – assuming there are also no near-term plans for a gigabit deployment in the same area (either via private investment or state-aid).
At present the availability of this scheme is limited to parts of Derbyshire, Birmingham and the Black Country, Merseyside and Greater Manchester, Greater London, Scotland and the Isle of Wight. The restriction is partly to avoid the voucher scheme clashing with Project Gigabit’s larger subsidised delivery contracts, although this is a constantly changing situation and so sometimes the current rules do need updating.
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According to our sources, BDUK has identified through supplier engagement that premises in parts of Cambridgeshire, Dorset, Newcastle and North Tyneside, Norfolk, North East England and Wales are now suitable for opening to the GBVS. This will give designated broadband suppliers in each area the opportunity to identify and deliver new voucher projects.
In addition, more premises will also be opened to vouchers across existing areas, including Shropshire, Birmingham and the Black Country, Greater London, and Merseyside and Manchester. At present this change is not being reflected via the GBVS website, but ISPreview understands that this will happen very soon.
BDUK Supplier Notice
Suppliers are reminded that … any new voucher projects or changes to existing projects submitted across any of these new areas or any existing areas open to vouchers will be prioritised if they can be delivered, and all voucher funding can be claimed, before April 2027. Suppliers with approved GBVS projects that continue to deliver connections and draw down voucher funding to agreed milestones are not impacted by this prioritisation.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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