{"id":26465,"date":"2021-03-26T10:06:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-26T10:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/?p=26465"},"modified":"2021-03-26T22:47:02","modified_gmt":"2021-03-26T22:47:02","slug":"anger-as-new-gigabit-broadband-vouchers-exclude-some-villages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2021\/03\/anger-as-new-gigabit-broadband-vouchers-exclude-some-villages.html","title":{"rendered":"Anger as New Gigabit Broadband Vouchers Exclude Some Villages UPDATE"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Government’s new \u00a3210m UK Gigabit Voucher scheme, which is due to launch on 8th April 2021 and will help to spread 1Gbps capable broadband into some of the most remote rural areas, is facing somewhat of a backlash from communities that may find some or all of their homes being excluded under the new eligibility criteria.<\/p>\n

On the surface the new scheme – part of the \u00a35bn Project Gigabit<\/strong><\/a> programme – appears to be an almost identical follow-on replacement for the existing \u00a3200m Rural Gigabit Connectivity<\/a><\/strong> (RGC) project. Both schemes offer up to \u00a33,500 for businesses, or \u00a31,500 for homes, to help them get an ultrafast or gigabit-capable connection installed.<\/p>\n

So far more than 66,000 vouchers, worth up to \u00a3127m, have been issued to premises across the UK under the existing voucher scheme, but that one was always planned to end on 31st March 2021<\/strong>. Meanwhile, approvals for a lot of new projects under the RGC have been paused for a few weeks, while awaiting details of the new scheme.<\/p>\n

Happily, the Government recently confirmed that there would indeed be a follow-on voucher scheme, and it seemed to match the existing one, but the real problem stems from a key change to eligibility that has occurred under the hood of the new scheme. Put simply, Building Digital UK<\/a> (DCMS) have narrowed the eligibility criteria so that only those in the remotest areas (e.g. Ofcom’s Area 3<\/a><\/strong>) are eligible. This makes sense given the rural focus of Project Gigabit, but it has a cost.<\/p>\n

NOTE:<\/strong> Ofcom<\/a>’s Area 2 is different from Area 3 as it reflects potentially competitive areas (covering about 70% of the UK), while non-competitive Area 3 reflects about 30%.<\/div>\n

Extract from BDUK Supplier Notice (Feb 2021)<\/strong><\/p>\n

“In line with the Government\u2019s ambition to provide access to better broadband to many more of the hardest-to-reach communities in rural areas across the UK, we are considering that the new voucher would no longer treat premises that are in an Ofcom<\/a> Area 2 area as eligible to receive voucher funding.<\/p>\n

This change would be in order to target the funding at delivery in the hardest to reach areas which are least likely to receive commercial rollout. … This bulletin also provides guidance for existing PRPs [Pre Registered Packages] that do feature Ofcom<\/a> Area 2 premises and therefore would not be eligible to transfer to the UK Gigabit Programme.<\/p>\n

However, over the next few days we will write to all relevant suppliers to give our best indication of the impact of the potential Ofcom Area 2 eligibility change to supplier\u2019s existing projects that have been active in the last 180 days. (An active project is a project that has had at least one voucher requested, issued or claimed within the last 6 months, or has been submitted within the last 6 months). “<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We first reported on this change back in February 2021 (here<\/a>), but at the time it was unclear how much of an impact it would have or whether they would actually adopt it. However, since last week’s Project Gigabit announcement, we’ve received a rising number of complaints from communities that are stuck awaiting project approval under the old scheme (i.e. many of these have a lot, or a majority, of Area 2 premises).<\/p>\n

One of several examples is the community scheme for the village of Furnace Wood<\/strong> (c.100 premises) on the Sussex\/Surrey border in England, which is now in limbo due to a high quantity of Area 2 premises. The village sits between East Grinstead and Crawley, so it’s not the most isolated of locations and some slower FTTC<\/a> of varying speeds does exist.<\/p>\n

Apparently, Openreach<\/a> quoted \u00a3245,000<\/strong> to upgrade the village with gigabit FTTP<\/a> (Community Fibre Partnership<\/strong>) and locals were aiming to help cover this using RGC gigabit vouchers, but due to the Area 2 change they may no longer be eligible for this after 31st March 2021.<\/p>\n

James Sherwin-Smith, MD of Fibre4FW Ltd. (Furnace Wood), said:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“The DCMS scheme closes on 31 March, and over 270 communities are currently in a pending state awaiting DCMS approval. If communities do not receive approval by 31 March and the corresponding vouchers issued, communities across the UK will see, by our estimates, over \u00a350M of eligible funding vanish overnight. They may not be able to get access to faster broadband speeds for over a decade.<\/p>\n

DCMS is either inept, ill-prepared, or deliberately stalling in an effort to manage its budget – or a combination of all three. Its refusal to allow individual schemes to operate across more than one exchange means that some communities are losing out due to a lack of funding on segments of their projects – resulting in digital apartheid. This is another slap in the face for rural communities struggling with the impact of Covid-19: families struggling to work and educate their children from home, and small and medium enterprises trying to keep their businesses afloat – all on sub-standard internet connections.<\/p>\n

Fibre 4 Furnace Wood is eligible to receive \u00a3245,000 of funding to support connections for over 100 houses and businesses under the national scheme and additional support from West Sussex County Council. This is not a sum we can raise ourselves, and no supplier is going to be prepared to invest in a rural, marginalised area without such government support. This is a once in lifetime opportunity to improve our national infrastructure, and DCMS appear to be happy to run out the clock. We are not alone – this is happening across rural communities up and down the UK. It\u2019s a national disgrace.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We cannot vouch for the figure of 270 communities or \u00a350m of funding mentioned above, but we have certainly heard from several others in the same situation. The Fibre4FW project points to a few more, such as ‘Broadband for Slinfold’ in West Sussex and the ‘Froggatt community ultrafast’ project in Derbyshire, although these two seem to be in Area 3 according to Ofcom’s WTFMR spreadsheet and so may be safe.<\/p>\n

We have asked DCMS to comment and await their reply, although BDUK have previously been clear that they do intend to honour all vouchers issued before 31st March 2021, but obviously that doesn’t help those with a lot of Area 2 premises who have yet to get their projects approved (i.e. no vouchers issued yet).<\/p>\n

The BDUK team are currently still in the process of assuring and approving the voucher projects that they have assessed as most likely to be affected, with the hope that most of the communities currently waiting for approval will be able to continue. But until that process has completed we won’t know what the full impact is going to be.<\/p>\n

The situation is tricky for DCMS\/BDUK too because they need to minimise, as much as is possible, conflicts between their new voucher scheme and future gap-funded deployment contracts. At the same time there will inevitably be some areas where the Area 2 classification may feel as if it doesn’t suit. Getting this right is an extremely difficult thing to do, especially where communities may be split by different classifications.<\/p>\n

The hope is that those in Area 2, who may no longer benefit from vouchers, should still see a future upgrade, either via commercial builds or support from the gap-funded contracts to follow. But we wouldn’t be surprised if that doesn’t happen for everybody in an Area 2 community by the end of 2025.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, James at Fibre4FW has begun asking other communities in the same boat to co-sign their statement on the matter (here<\/a>). One difficulty here is that we don’t yet know the final outcome of BDUK’s ongoing assuring and approving process, without that there will be an element of uncertainty.<\/p>\n

UPDATE 10:33pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

A number of events have taken place this afternoon, and they’re all positive, but we’ll start with DCMS’s response to the issue raised above.<\/p>\n

A DCMS Spokesperson said:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“These areas will not miss out on gigabit broadband. We will honour all vouchers already issued and areas ineligible under the new voucher scheme are due to receive connections through planned industry rollout or our record \u00a35 billion Project Gigabit scheme.<\/p>\n

We always seek to get the best value for taxpayers, which is why our voucher scheme is focused on areas outside those commercially competitive by Ofcom or already earmarked for public subsidy.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

However, despite the above statement appearing to confirm what we already knew about issued vouchers (the problem we wrote about covered projects that had not yet been approved, rather than already issued vouchers), DCMS has now informed us that DCMS will still honour voucher requests for those under the old scheme that now fall into Ofcom’s Area 2. Indeed, they’re prioritising authorisation of them.<\/p>\n

As if to prove this point, tonight saw the Fibre 4 Furnace Wood project being granted approval to proceed, which is despite much of the area falling into that Area 2 classification. Apparently, there are now only 9 projects outstanding that won’t be eligible for the new voucher scheme – these are all awaiting further info from suppliers and are being proactively managed.<\/p>\n

In the end, it\u2019s a good result and some positive movement. We have to credit BDUK for rapidly responding to the concerns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Government’s new \u00a3210m UK Gigabit Voucher scheme, which is due to launch on 8th April 2021 and will help to spread 1Gbps capable broadband into some of the most remote rural areas, is facing somewhat of a backlash from communities that may find some or all of their homes being excluded under the new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[471,56,414,38,1997,89,537,71],"class_list":["post-26465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uk_isp_news","tag-bduk","tag-fttp","tag-northern-ireland","tag-politics","tag-uk-gigabit-programme","tag-scotland","tag-uso","tag-wales"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"yoast_head":"\nAnger as New Gigabit Broadband Vouchers Exclude Some Villages UPDATE - ISPreview UK<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Government's new \u00a3210m UK Gigabit Voucher scheme, which is due to launch on 8th April 2021 and will help to spread 1Gbps capable broadband into some\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2021\/03\/anger-as-new-gigabit-broadband-vouchers-exclude-some-villages.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Anger as New Gigabit Broadband Vouchers Exclude Some Villages UPDATE - 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