More than 40,000 small and medium businesses (SMEs) across the UK have now benefitted from the Government’s Broadband Connection voucher scheme, latest figures published today show. The scheme, which helps SMEs get connected to superfast broadband has seen a huge surge in demand in recent months, but time is running out for businesses to take advantage of the initiative.
Some can take weeks, some can take months - why is it so difficult to give a connection date for fibre leased lines?
We've been connecting quite a few fibre leased lines recently thanks to the government grants currently available, and the two things we get asked the most are:
Unfortunately we can never give concrete answers to either of these questions due to the extensive survey and installation process associated with what is, in essence, your own private optical fibre connection dug through the ground directly to your building.
Anything can come up in the surveying process, from collapsed ducts blocking the cable to a landlord unwilling to grant site access. The huge list of potential issues is exactly why the survey process can take so long, and why we can't guarantee there won't be additional charges over and above the quoted amount.
To go through the whole process here you'd be reading all day, but thankfully BT Openreach (not always our favourite people) have produced this video which explains well all the stages of the Leased Line (or Ethernet as they call it) survey and installation process:
South Yorkshire SMEs access to £40m worth of broadband funding could be short-lived as funding is not renewed in the Chancellor's recent budget.
Whatever your thoughts on George Osbourne's recent budget statement, one thing it told us is that when the current Government Connection Voucher scheme pot of £40m runs out it won't be renewed, and that could be bad news for businesses in Sheffield, Doncaster, Barnsley and Rotherham.
South Yorkshire's place on the scheme was only announced in the budget last year, largely due to the ill-fated Digital Region infrastructure being in place when the scheme first started in 2013, and at the time the representatives of the local bid were open enough to suggest that local companies might only have 12 months to have a crack at the funding.
However, this 12 months is now looking more like 7 months.
The £40m pot was always a fixed pot accessible on a first come, first served basis, but with a big upsurge in claims during this tax year, the pot is currently predicted to run out by October or November 2015.
This is why it's more important than ever to spread the news about this funding to make sure that every South Yorkshire company that can access the funding, does so.
Please help us bring as much of this funding into South Yorkshire as we can as once it's gone, it's gone - and it could go to Leeds or London instead!