DCMS Fibre: Government Scheme

unclebatman

Hi all,

Hoping that someone has experience or knowledge of this. 

I live in a semi rural area with very low speed (max 3mb) broadband. 

Recently, a company who supply mobile broadband to the area worked with the government (I believe under the DCMS gigabit fibre scheme) to supply fibre to the area but at significant monthly cost and
Minimum two year contract. 

In all honesty I’ve been completely unimpressed with their customer service even discussing the possibility of joining their scheme, I’m aware their mobile broadband service has been very poor, and the thought of signing up to a 2 year contract with them isn’t exactly appealing. 

Does anyone know how the DCMS government scheme operates? Will other suppliers be allowed to provide fibre now that the lines are installed or will this first company have a monopoly on the area? 

Hoping someone may be able to provide some information. 

Mister_G

Try having a read of this:

Gigabit Vouchers (culture.gov.uk)

unclebatman

Thanks for the link, though I’m specifically interested in whether this company who’ve done the first installation will now have the monopoly on the area. Cost of the broadband alone goes up to £48 a month in year two of the contract. 

onomatopoeia99

Unless the installation is done by Openreach then the supplier will have a monopoly on their infrastructure, like Virgin Media, Gigaclear and others do.  

That does not stop Openreach or other providers building their own infrastructure out in the future.

iniltous

onomatopoeia99 said:

Unless the installation is done by Openreach then the supplier will have a monopoly on their infrastructure, like Virgin Media, Gigaclear and others do.  

That does not stop Openreach or other providers building their own infrastructure out in the future.

If the economics of the area was the only way a service was ever going to be provided was with a tax payer subsidy to a network provider , then once the  ( tax payer funded ) network  has signed up those that wanted or needed a ‘fast’ connection,  the area is going to be even less attractive to providers than it was before, so the chances of a commercial rollout from another provider is unlikely to say the least .

glennevis

unclebatman said:

Thanks for the link, though I’m specifically interested in whether this company who’ve done the first installation will now have the monopoly on the area. Cost of the broadband alone goes up to £48 a month in year two of the contract. 

With DCMS subsidised installations there may be an initial period where the installer has a monopoly. But I would assume that one of the conditions of being awarded a subsidised contract would be that the infrastructure should be opened up to competitors eventually.

That's what happened where I live in Scotland (state subsidised but not by DCMS of course). There was initially a single offering from a broadband provider I'd never heard of which was expensive. Six months later, a raft of companies are now offering fttp broadband, including well known providers like Talktalk (cheaper but at half the achievable speed). I can't comment on the quality of service because I'm happy with VDSL speeds.

unclebatman

Thanks for your comments all; much appreciated. 
It will be interesting to see how this develops.