Broadband Voucher Scheme

Dundee City Council are pleased to announce that businesses in Dundee and Angus will now be able to apply for grants of up to £3,000 each to boost their broadband, as announced in the recent budget.

This free information event will include presentations and Q&A session from the scheme administrator with local suppliers. Confirmed Suppliers to present are Rapier Systems and HiNet.

This comes as part of the UK Government’s broadband connection voucher scheme, which is to be extended for a further year. Each voucher covers up to £3,000 of installation costs but businesses can also apply as a group to connect bigger or more complicated premises. Once installed, businesses pay the line rental and VAT.

More than 25,000 vouchers have already been issued to businesses in other cities around the UK. The scheme, which helps SMEs get connected to superfast broadband has seen a huge surge in demand in recent months. The Government has made £40m available in 2015/16 for the scheme, and the vouchers are being issued on a “first come, first served” basis. Funds have not been ring fenced for individual cities, and the Government is encouraging all eligible businesses to apply before the available funds are exhausted.

From 1 April this year, small businesses in an additional 28 cities including Dundee and Angus,are eligible to apply.

The benefits to businesses of improved broadband connections include:

• Increasing profits by offering better services to more satisfied customers.
• Improving customers’ experience with quicker communication and faster file-sharing thanks to higher upload and download speeds, especially for large files.
• Reducing software and hardware costs by helping businesses switch to online data storage solutions.
• Enhancing the way businesses communicate and collaborate through online video conference and cloud-based information sharing.

Applying for a broadband grant is easy - after 1 April 2015 all Dundee and Angus businesses have to do is enter their postcode at www.connectionvouchers.co.uk to check eligibility, choose a supplier and fill in an application form or pick an off the shelf deal with no forms to fill in. Charities, not for profit organisations and commercial landlords can also apply.