Policy paper

Project Gigabit Delivery Plan: winter update

Updated 9 February 2022

Ministerial foreword

Our broadband revolution is moving forward at an incredible pace — as the last quarterly update shows.

Thanks to industry and to our record commitment of £5 billion, more and more people across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom are connecting at exceptionally fast speeds. I’m delighted to share with you the news that nearly two in three UK premises now have access to a gigabit-capable connection — a huge leap forwards from just over one in twenty in January 2019.

This is opening up opportunities that didn’t exist only a few months ago. Countless rural businesses can now expand and thrive - families and flatmates can work, study and socialise online without the danger of buffering; and public services like schools and libraries are able to provide the best possible services to their communities.

Progress with Project Gigabit has been swift. We have now launched two further regional supplier procurements, adding Cambridgeshire and the North East of England (covering Durham and Northumberland) to our initial procurement in Cumbria. We have also launched the first local supplier procurements in Dorset, North Northumberland and Teesdale.

And we’re improving the procurement process. From the start of this year we are collecting detailed gigabit build plans from suppliers so that we can better plan our procurement intervention areas, streamline our Open Market Reviews and avoid any overlap with suppliers’ commercial plans.

Since the launch of Project Gigabit in April 2021, we have connected over 3,500 public sector building hubs: places like Borrowdale Primary School in Cumbria, which is now able to take full advantage of online learning while also speeding up connections to surrounding homes and businesses. We expect to connect a further 100 hubs over the next quarter.

To support this phenomenal progress, Building Digital UK (BDUK) will become an Executive Agency of my department. BDUK will be based at a new head office in central Manchester, boosting the city’s credentials as a fast-growing digital tech hub.

The shift to a gigabit nation is a leap forward akin to the industrial revolution. This government is installing the internet of the future — building broadband that’s fast, reliable and future-proof, that supports 5G and that paves the way for new and unexpected developments in commerce, trade and technology.

Rt Hon. Nadine Dorries MP
Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

Summary

The end of 2021 saw UK gigabit coverage growing rapidly again, helped by the work of Virgin Media O2 and others to upgrade and expand networks at a terrific pace. Over 65% of UK premises now have gigabit-capable networks available to them. In this winter update, we report on the ongoing commercial investment in full-fibre networks fuelling announcements of build plans in more and more towns across the UK. Meanwhile, the £5bn Project Gigabit continues to deliver to harder-to-reach premises and is quickly ramping up the procurement activity that will enable the UK to reach 85% coverage by the end of 2025 and take us further towards 100%.

Key updates:

Currently 16 local and devolved authorities have live schemes worth £10.5m to top-up our voucher projects.

We have launched new Regional Supplier procurements in Cambridgeshire and the North East of England, as well as Local Supplier procurements in rural Dorset, North Northumberland and Teesdale.

We are consulting with the market about the details of upcoming procurements in Cornwall, Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire and Shropshire.

BDUK is expected to become an Executive Agency of DCMS from April 2022, with more operational autonomy to focus on Project Gigabit as well as the £1bn Shared Rural Network.

This winter update also provides more detail on our process to take suppliers’ build plans and develop these into procurement areas and our engagement with the market as we do so.

Finally in this update, we provide some insight into one of the beneficiaries from our public sector hub upgrades, Borrowdale Primary School in Cumbria.

Update on commercial investment in UK gigabit infrastructure

With the upgrade of Virgin Media O2’s cable network to gigabit speeds now complete, the commercial market’s continued investment in digital infrastructure has seen gigabit-capable broadband reach 65% of UK premises to date.

Since our autumn update, a range of suppliers have also announced the latest progress on their full fibre deployments. CityFibre (1 million), Gigaclear (250,000), KCOM (250,000), Openreach (100,000 in Northern Ireland) and others including Ogi (4,565), Quantum Fibre Broadband (5,000), and WightFibre (30,000) have all published premises passed figures in the last quarter.

Other suppliers have provided further clarity on the timing and location of their deployment plans. These include Brsk, Connexin, FullFibre Ltd, Freedom Fibre, Grain, ITS Technology, Lit Fibre, MS3, Openreach, Swish, Truespeed, Wessex Internet and YouFibre.

New entrants also continue to emerge. Since November 2021, Ofcom has received applications for Code Powers from 4 Fibre Limited, Allpoints Fibre Limited, Converged Communication Solutions Limited, Radius BTS Limited, and WhyFibre Ltd all looking to deploy fibre.

This supplier activity has been accompanied by more financial investment continuing to funnel into the market. New funding has been announced by Gigaclear (£190 million), Borderlink (£164 million), Netomnia (£123 million), Airband (£100 million), Truespeed (£100 million), Toob (£87.5 million), Digital Infrastructure (£100 million), Lightspeed (£60 million) and Lothian Broadband (£20 million). Several suppliers have also grown through acquisitions, with Swish, SWS Broadband and Voneus UK all announcing purchases during the past quarter.

Several of these significant commercial commitments have been specifically targeted towards harder to reach areas thanks to Project Gigabit interventions. Today the Superfast Programme and Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme continue to work with suppliers to stretch the commercial deployment of gigabit-capable broadband to the more remote areas of the country.

There remain challenges to deployment that the market must meet head on. In order to match their coverage ambitions suppliers will need to ensure they have the requisite labour capacity to plan and deploy networks. Major suppliers such as Openreach, Virgin Media O2 and CityFibre have already announced their intentions to increase their workforces, with plans to hire an additional 21,000 workers, whilst others, such as the Telecom Group, have established a new ‘Telecoms Engineer Bootcamp‘ to help train up and recruit new fibre engineers. The sector has also continued to invest in research and development to find innovative ways to decrease the cost of fibre deployment and extend coverage to more remote communities. In the last year alone, according to the Office for National Statistics, spend on R&D has grown by 4.5% to £1.028 billion, the highest since 2011.

More suppliers have also begun to consider the potential of wholesale - enabling retail internet service providers to offer connections to customers over their infrastructure, increasing the choice of services available to residents and businesses. The wholesale market continues to evolve both in terms of price point available to ISPs and new proposals for enabling wholesale across separate networks. We continue to monitor these developments and their impact on our overarching objectives.

This snapshot of commercial activity is made up of suppliers whose build plans cover hundreds of locations all over the country as the market continues its progress towards reaching an estimated 80% of UK premises by December 2025. Combined with the efforts of Project Gigabit to extend coverage to those premises that are not commercially viable, we remain confident in delivering on our commitment to reach 85% of UK premises by 2025 and pushing further towards nationwide coverage.

Update on Project Gigabit Delivery Plans

Progress of delivering Gigabit Infrastructure Subsidy (GIS) procurements

In previous updates, we have provided full details of the pipeline of procurements showing our current view of procurement sizes, dates and values. Given the dynamic nature of this information, we have now moved to a live, searchable source of procurement information alongside other DCMS procurement opportunities.

Live procurements

Six procurements are currently live, with five new ones commencing since the autumn update (and Cumbria continuing to progress). Cambridgeshire, North East England, North Northumberland, Teesdale and North Dorset procurements were launched in line with our expectations at the autumn update.

Local or Regional Supplier procurement	Area/Lot Number	Procurement start date	Estimated contract commencement date subject to change	Estimated number of uncommercial premises in the procurement area subject to change	Indicative Contract Value subject to change
Local	North Dorset (Lot 14)	05/01/2022	08/08/2022	7,100	£11.0m
Local	North Northumberland (Lot 34.01)	11/01/2022	08/08/2022	3,900	£7.3m
Local	Teesdale(Lot 4.01)	11/01/2022	08/08/2022	4,100	£6.6m
Regional	Cumbria (Lot 28)	20/10/2021	06/09/2022	60,800	£109.2m
Regional	North East England (Lot 4)	18/01/2022	24/11/2022	61,800	£89.6m
Regional	Cambridgeshire and adjacent areas (Lot 5)	07/01/2022	17/11/2022	49,700	£68.6m

Upcoming procurements

The table below shows the procurements in the pipeline posted on the Gov.UK website, alongside DCMS’s other upcoming commercial opportunities. This pipeline, as we have said in previous quarterly updates, represents an indicative forward view of commercial activity to be undertaken by the programme. Some of the information provided is based on modelled data that will be superseded. The low and high contract values represent a possible range of funding; actual contract values are likely to be spread across the range for each lot. This pipeline is subject to change based on emerging data and feedback, following open market reviews, public reviews and market engagement.

Local or Regional Supplier procurement	Area/Lot Number	Procurement start date	Estimated contract commencement date subject to change	Estimated number of uncommercial premises in the procurement area subject to change	Indicative Contract Value subject to change
Local	Lot 32 Cornwall and Isles of Scilly	Feb - Apr 2022	Sep - Nov 2022	9,700	£18m - £24m
Local	Lot 32 Cornwall and Isles of Scilly	Feb - Apr 2022	Sep - Nov 2022	9,900	£18m - £24m
Regional	Lot 7 Norfolk	Feb - Apr 2022	Jan - Mar 2023	111,400	£115m - £195m
Regional	Lot 2 Suffolk	Feb - Apr 2022	Jan - Mar 2023	86,100	£89m - £151m
Regional	Lot 27 Hampshire*	Mar - May 2022	Jan - Mar 2023	148,100	£148m - £251m
Regional	Lot 25 Shropshire*	Mar - May 2022	Jan - Mar 2023	64,300	£61m - £104m
Regional	Lot 24 Worcestershire	May - Jul 2022	Apr - Jun 2023	45,600	£50m - £84m
Regional	Lot 13 Oxfordshire and West Berkshire	May - Aug 2022	Apr - Jun 2023	67,000	£67m - £114m
Regional	Lot 29 Kent	May - Jul 2022	Apr - Jun 2023	109,500	£119m - £203m
Regional	Lot 26 Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and East of Berkshire	May - Aug 2022	Apr - Jun 2023	137,100	£140m - £237m
Regional	Lot 19 Staffordshire	May - Aug 2022	Apr - Jun 2023	70,800	£72m - £123m
Regional	Lot 1 West Sussex	May - Aug 2022	Apr - Jun 2023	56,700	£66m - £112m
Regional	Lot 16 East Sussex	Aug - Oct 2022	Jul - Sep 2023	41,200	£49m - £83m
Regional	Lot 12 Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes	Aug - Oct 2022	Jul - Sep 2023	81,300	£84m - £144m
Regional	Lot 3 Derbyshire	Aug - Oct 2022	Jul - Sep 2023	57,000	£64m - £110m
Regional	Lot 30 Wiltshire and South Gloucestershire	Aug - Oct 2022	Jul - Sep 2023	84,800	£85m - £145m
Regional	Lot 9 Lancashire	Aug - Oct 2022	Jul - Sep 2023	82,000	£90m - £153m
Regional	Lot 22 Surrey	Aug - Oct 2022	Jul - Sep 2023	99,400	£101m - £171m
Regional	Lot 11 Leicestershire and Warwickshire	Nov 2022 - Jan 2023	Oct - Dec 2023	112,900	£114m - £194m
Regional	Lot 10 Nottinghamshire and West of Lincolnshire	Nov 2022 - Jan 2023	Oct - Dec 2023	89,700	£90m - £152m
Regional	Lot 8 West Yorkshire and parts of North Yorkshire	Nov 2022 - Jan 2023	Oct - Dec 2023	125,200	£128m - £218m
Regional	Lot 20 South Yorkshire	Nov 2022 - Jan 2023	Oct - Dec 2023	56,800	£59m - £103m
Regional	Lot 17 Cheshire	Feb - Apr 2023	Jan - Mar 2024	74,300	£85m - £144m
Regional	Lot 6 Devon and Somerset	Feb - Apr 2023	Jan - Mar 2024	159,600	£198m - £337m
Regional	Lot 15 Herefordshire	Feb - Apr 2023	Jan - Mar 2024	23,700	£30m - £60m
Regional	Lot 18 Gloucestershire	Feb - Apr 2023	Jan - Mar 2024	44,700	£40m - £80m
Regional	Lot 14 Dorset	May - Jul 2023	Apr - Jun 2024	56,500	£62m - £105m
Regional	Lot 21 Essex	May - Jul 2023	Apr - Jun 2024	78,400	£79m - £135m
Regional	Lot 23 Lincolnshire (including NE Lincolnshire and N Lincolnshire) and East Riding	May - Jul 2023	Apr - Jun 2024	105,700	£106m - £180m
Regional	Lot 31 Northern North Yorkshire	Aug - Oct 2023	Jul - Sep 2024	28,200	£25m - £42m

* Areas under consultation with the market about the suitability of further Local Supplier procurements that could complement the need for Regional Supplier procurements.

Our strategy has been to use the first procurements to test and ‘debug’ new processes and then to ramp up rapidly so that we get work started across the UK. Our progress over the last quarter shows the rapid growth in Project Gigabit’s plans:

Lot	Area
1	West Sussex
2	Suffolk
3	Derbyshire
4	North East England
4.01	Teesdale
5	Cambridgeshire and adjacent areas
7	Norfolk
9	Lancashire
12	Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes
13	Oxfordshire and West Berkshire
14	Dorset
16	East Sussex
19	Staffordshire
22	Surrey
24	Worcestershire
25	Shropshire
26	Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and East of Berkshire
27	Hampshire
28	Cumbria
29	Kent
30	Wiltshire and South Gloucestershire
32	Cornwall and Isles of Scilly
34.01	North Northumberland
42	Wales

In Cumbria (28) the first Regional Supplier procurement process launched in October. We have evaluated responses to the initial Supplier Questionnaire and launched the Invitation To Tender with qualified suppliers. This is the first procurement and so is providing valuable learning which we have used - and will continue to use - in future procurements.

In Cambridgeshire and surrounding areas (5), and North East England (4), regional supplier procurements were launched in January.

In Dorset (14), North Northumberland (34.01), Teesdale (4.01), the first local supplier procurements launched in January.

In Cornwall (32), Shropshire (25), Norfolk (7), Suffolk (2) and Hampshire (27), we have published detailed plans for procurements to the market and will be starting procurement imminently.

In Worcestershire (24), Kent (29), West Sussex (1), Oxfordshire and West Berkshire (13), Staffordshire (19), Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and East Berkshire (26), and Wales (42) we have collected detailed gigabit market information and are developing procurement plans.

In East Sussex (16), Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes (12), Derbyshire (3), Wiltshire and South Gloucestershire (30), Lancashire (9), and Surrey (22) we are starting formal collection of market information.

Local supplier procurements

Our strategy is to use local supplier procurements in order to involve smaller, localised suppliers in the programme, including those who specialise in building networks in rural and remote areas.

The Dynamic Purchasing System is now active, enabling us to procure local supplier contracts typically covering between 1,000 and 8,000 uncommercial premises in the intervention area. 10 suppliers have so far fully registered to take advantage of the bidding opportunities, and as a Dynamic Purchasing System, it continues to remain open to new applicants.

Our first local supplier procurements have been shaped by discussions with local authorities and telecoms providers active in the relevant areas. We have worked with local telecoms providers to shape local supplier procurements in North Dorset, the North of Northumberland and Teesdale. These procurements are now underway, and we look forward to working with bidders towards awards later this year.

We are currently consulting with the market about the suitability of further Local Supplier procurement areas in Cornwall, Shropshire and in Hampshire that we believe could complement the Regional Supplier procurements.

Regional supplier procurements

Regional supplier procurements target large areas (typically 40,000 - 100,000 uncommercial premises) most suitable for telecoms providers with substantial operational capacity and financial backing.

We have completed the evaluation of submissions to the Supplier Qualification stage in our first procurement in Cumbria, and have now begun the Invitation to Tender stage.

We have also launched regional supplier procurements in the North East, Cambridgeshire and surrounding areas, and look forward to receiving responses this month.

We have tested the market appetite for a regional supplier procurement in Cornwall, and believe that at this stage, we should focus on local supplier procurements to build on the major gigabit investments committed in the county.

These local supplier contracts will cover a smaller area but will be awarded sooner (and delivered faster) than the originally planned regional supplier procurement. We will keep under review which combination of new local supplier contracts, Gigabit Voucher projects and/or regional supplier contracts will deliver the best outcomes for the remaining areas in Cornwall.

Our focus has now turned to the next phase of procurements in Hampshire, Shropshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. In each, we have published draft lists of premises and budget and will work with the market over the next month to shape intervention areas ahead of formal procurement.

Gigabit vouchers

Our Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme is seeing strong interest from suppliers of all sizes, submitting over 1,500 projects to BDUK for scheme approval, which would expand their networks in uncommercial areas.

In addition to the voucher’s principal value, local authorities can support the voucher distribution by applying a top up per voucher, with eligibility rules targeting the extra funding towards the local authorities’ priorities. Buckinghamshire is our latest top-up partner to go live with a commitment of £1m, and Kent has recently invested a further £1.5m into their top-up scheme. Currently 16 local and devolved authorities have live schemes worth £10.5m to top-up our voucher projects.

These top-ups effectively allow vouchers to reach harder areas. Previous top-ups have often doubled the value of our vouchers (which are usually £3,500 for business and £1,500 for homes), meaning that suppliers can use them to build more remote premises that would otherwise be out of reach under the standard voucher scheme.

Gigabit vouchers alongside procurements

Vouchers remain an essential tool in Project Gigabit, and as we engage with the market in each area, we are ensuring we explore where vouchers are likely to offer better pace, value and coverage than procurement.

As we described in the autumn update, we are now designating areas ‘voucher priority areas’ so that qualified voucher projects can continue to deliver uninterrupted while our procurement processes are underway. We will revisit voucher eligibility again when we have awarded the regional supplier and local supplier contracts to ensure we deliver gigabit to all areas of need as soon as possible.

In some circumstances, vouchers may be appropriate for a larger area: for instance, following market engagement in the Isle of Wight, we hope vouchers will be a faster and better value way to implement gigabit than procurement and in the south of Dorset, we hope the demand for vouchers will help drive gigabit further into rural communities. In these larger areas, we are delaying procurement to give vouchers projects time to deliver. We are structuring voucher delivery over larger areas into stages so that we can see gigabit infrastructure being implemented effectively, at good value and without leaving gaps. We retain the option to procure a telecoms provider to complete gigabit implementation if a voucher project runs out of steam or if we believe procurement will offer better pace, value and coverage.

Growing the pipeline of Public Sector Hub upgrades

Connecting public sector buildings to resilient, lightning-fast broadband not only improves public services for remote and rural communities but can also help drive the availability of gigabit infrastructure and connectivity services into the hardest to reach parts of the UK. We have connected over 3,500 hubs since the launch of Project Gigabit in April 2021, with a further 100 expected over the next quarter.

Our existing plans will see our gigabit connectivity programmes having provided fast internet to around 2,000 schools. Separately, the government is investing up to £30 million in a pilot to upgrade schools’ digital infrastructure in around 1,000 schools, allowing them to benefit from fast Wi-Fi and cloud services.

We are developing further investment plans with the Department for Education to provide more schools in rural areas to have access to fast internet connectivity in the classroom – benefiting thousands more children and teachers.

Project Gigabit prioritising hard-to-reach premises

Now we have finalised intervention areas and launched procurements for the first of our project areas, we are able to provide more information on how the Project Gigabit approach is prioritising the least commercial areas and those most in need.

Our procurements will make a substantial difference to rural communities. In the procurements that are now live, on average, rural premises comprise:

• 85% of the ‘Initial Scope’ of the Regional Supplier procurements. These are the premises we are asking Regional Suppliers to deliver first
• 82% of the ‘Deferred Scope’ of Regional Supplier procurements - premises which we are including in the scope of the procurement but waiting to see if gigabit is delivered using commercial funding before we act
• 95% of the local supplier procurements

In addition, the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme was amended in 2019 so that new funding was targeted at residential and business customers who are all now in rural areas.

These figures compare with an overall average rurality figure from the Office for National Statistics of 17.6% (by population) for England.

We are also prioritising implementation to homes and businesses that cannot access superfast (>30Mbps) network connections wherever practicable. We know these premises are those with the greatest need, and the contracts we award are designed to prioritise delivery to those homes and businesses where practicable.

Very Hard to Reach Premises

Our procurements will maximise the coverage of gigabit-capable infrastructure, however we know that it will be unaffordable to provide gigabit coverage to all premises in the UK.

For those very hard to reach (VHTR) premises that will not be reached through the Project Gigabit procurements, the government is today publishing its response to the call for evidence on improving connectivity for very hard to reach premises — summarising the information received by respondents and the most frequently expressed points of view. This response is the first step in delivering improved connectivity to these premises and further policy proposals will be set out in due course.

Project Gigabit across the Union

Many of the hardest-to-reach areas in the UK are in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We are working closely with the devolved governments to develop and deliver Project Gigabit plans.

Wales

The Welsh Government sought responses to their Open Market Review (24 August to 8 October 2021), to identify commercial plans across the nation and update an estimate of up to 234,000 premises potentially within scope for our interventions.

With supplier responses now received, we will be working with the Welsh Government to progress the Public Review that when completed will be used to identify potential procurement intervention areas. Commercial rollout is likely to cover places such as Aberdare, Abergavenny, Aberystwyth, Bangor, Barry, Bridgend, Caerphilly, Cardiff, Carmarthen, Cwmbran, Llandudno, Llanelli, Newport, Pontypridd, Port Talbot, Prestatyn, Pwllheli, Rhyl, Swansea, Welshpool and Wrexham. Project Gigabit will target the remaining, hardest-to-reach communities.

In addition, there is a considerable amount that has already been delivered or is under contract.

• The Superfast Cymru programme has provided access to gigabit-capable connections for 77,000 premises on top of the 646,000 premises with access to superfast connections in Wales. The remaining delivery under Superfast Cymru will enable a further 39,000 premises to become gigabit-capable by Summer 2022
• Over 600 public sector buildings in Wales (including GP surgeries and libraries) have been or are being connected to gigabit by March 2022, to help revolutionise public services. In the Cardiff region there will be approximately 160 public sites, across North Wales there will be approximately 325 public sites, in Pembrokeshire there will be 68 public sites, and in rural areas of Wales a further 77 public sites
• 2,238 vouchers have been issued to help communities in the hardest-to-reach parts of Wales. This is on top of the 1,863 (22 December 2021) vouchers that connected homes and businesses between 2018 and December 2021

Scotland

Engagement with the Scottish Government on the potential for Project Gigabit contracts in Scotland is ongoing. Preparatory work is underway to launch a gigabit Open Market Review for Scotland in the coming weeks.

Work to connect public sector sites in Scotland continues with further NHS Scotland sites confirmed for connection in 2022 as part of Hubs projects in Orkney, Jura, Argyll & Bute and Skye. Wider engagement has also begun on potential future Hubs projects with interested stakeholders in Scotland’s rural and island local authorities.

In addition Scotland has so far benefitted from £4.5 million of voucher funding across more than 2,000 beneficiaries, with a further 1,080 vouchers issued, ensuring that Project Gigabit reaches all parts of the UK.

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is leading the UK with over 80% gigabit-capable broadband coverage already, helped by both a competitive commercial supplier market and subsidised deployments. The commercial market was stimulated by over £35 million UK government funding for local council and health agency Hub projects, which have already connected over 1,100 public buildings with gigabit-capable broadband by December 2021 and a further 100 buildings due by March 2022.

The £165 million Project Stratum (£150 million UK government funding and £15 million from Northern Ireland Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs) will now deliver gigabit-capable broadband to over 85,000 premises by March 2025. This is a result of extended coverage to include an additional c.8.5k eligible premises, including some of the hardest-to-reach, with additional funding of £32 million allocated by DCMS (70%), NI’s Department for Economy (DfE) (15%), and Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (15%).

Project Stratum in its first year of delivery is ahead of target with over 22,000 premises passed at the end of 2021.

BDUK has initiated dialogue with DfE on the rollout of Project Gigabit in Northern Ireland and will continue to engage and conduct an Open Market Review in 2022 to understand how best solutions can be implemented to reach all premises.

Developing the procurement intervention areas

Many telecoms providers have asked about how we develop procurement options after Open Market Review and Public Review, moving from high level plans to very specific procurements defined at individual address level. In this section, we outline the process. We have worked closely with telecoms providers during Phase 1A to refine and revise this process and will keep steps under review to improve efficiency and outcomes.

We have set out four basic steps which we are following for each of the 38 lots in England, and in due course Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. The first step follows the conclusion of the Public Review (with the aim of starting after the conclusion of Open Market Review as soon as possible) and the last step precedes the procurement processes.

Step 1 Map gigabit plans in the area

We build a comprehensive picture of each area using all available data and a combination of queries, algorithms and visualisation in Tableau. This is an iterative process taking data from a range of sources, with input from councils, telecoms providers and teams across BDUK.

Approximately two weeks after we have concluded Open Market Review or Public Review determinations, we:

1. Collate market plans and subsidy control categorisations: creating space where we are confident that the market is going to invest in gigabit.

2. Check for competing interventions where a building will already receive a gigabit subsidy from another intervention, for instance, a voucher, a hub or part of gigabit delivery under a Superfast contract.

3. Check voucher projects where buildings are part of active voucher project delivery areas. We may ask telecoms providers to provide UPRNs for voucher projects as part of this step.

4. Collate Local Supplier Intervention Area ideas we have received from councils and telecoms providers. We may speak to telecoms providers as part of this.

Our biggest challenge at the moment is getting an early, stable view of market plans given the dynamic nature of telecoms investment. In most cases so far, we have only been able to form a reliable view after we have concluded Public Review - which is very late in the process. It is important that telecoms providers give us their best view of plans as early as possible: at Open Market Review as well as Public Review so that we can start to model options for intervention as early as possible, maximising time available to consult and refine.

Step 2 Model options for intervention

Over the next two weeks we develop options for intervention. We will:

1. Run algorithms to form more coherent areas for procurement removing premises from scope at addresses, on roads and in built-up areas where there are commercial delivery plans.

2. Build options for local supplier intervention areas at individual home/business level using visualisation tools such as coverage heatmaps, aiming for procurements which are technically and commercially attractive to the market.

3. Design voucher priority areas where vouchers are most likely to deliver best pace, value and coverage. Guidance on this process has been released in the vouchers bulletins.

4. Review with local authority team using intelligence built up over the superfast roll-out.

5. Set level of subsidy (cost to government): by estimating engineering difficulty.

We are continuing to develop the algorithms based on experience, and we are evaluating new techniques such as graph database models to help get a better view of the likely gaps in commercial gigabit provision. Algorithms are important because of the very high volume of data we need to process in a consistent way, but we also expect to undertake some manual data cleansing in atypical areas.

Step 3 Test options with the market - soft market testing

We release the options for intervention to the market for comment. This is the first opportunity for telecoms providers to offer formal comments on a range of potential Local Supplier and Regional Supplier Intervention Areas.

Based on telecoms providers’ feedback in the Phase 1A areas, we have recently expanded the information we provide to the market at Soft Market Testing. We now aim to provide UPRNs for individual addresses (identifying Initial Scope and Deferred Scope for Regional Supplier contracts) and the level of subsidy we expect to include in the contracts. We also use this time to continue engaging with local authorities.

We ask telecoms providers to provide high level feedback in a week where possible.

As a result of this engagement we may discount some potential procurement areas, or alter the shape of them. We review all of the previous steps in the light of feedback to arrive at a preferred set of intervention areas for procurement and may follow up with specific telecoms providers where feedback was provided. We aim to conclude this review work in a further week, dependent on the feedback we receive.

Step 4 Confirm market interest in the preferred option - Pre-procurement market engagement (PPME)

When we have arrived at a set of procurements which we think offer best pace, value and coverage, with credible interest from prospective bidders, we will go out to the market with a more definitive set of UPRNs and costs for the preferred option, identifying where we think vouchers will offer best value (‘voucher priority areas’). We allow approximately 2 weeks for telecoms providers to provide feedback.

This is intended as a final check with prospective bidders that the procurements look viable and that there is genuine market interest in bidding. We still expect to receive feedback, and can make further changes if necessary. We are aiming, though, for PPME to be a final confirmatory check rather than leading to major revisions.

In some cases, we may need to conduct a further consultation round if the changes we make following PPME are material.

Our target is to conclude these further changes and finalise the areas for procurement within a month. Once this step is concluded, we are ready to start the procurement process as soon as we have received approvals from relevant government departments.

Update on the benefits of gigabit broadband

Hub connectivity in Cumbria

In our autumn update, we reported that we had published a report exploring the early and expected benefits of gigabit connections for schools, based on a survey of 261 schools connected under the Rural Gigabit Connectivity Programme.

In this update, we will provide further detail on the benefits that just one of these special projects has brought to rural Borrowdale. Once a hive of industrial activity with iron smelting, charcoal burning, and mining for copper and graphite, Borrowdale is now part of the Lake District National Park, with tourism making up one of the main sources of income for people who live here.

Children who go to the tiny Borrowdale CE Primary School have been lucky to grow up in this unique natural environment, but for one major drawback: a frustratingly slow broadband connection.

What that meant in practice is that staff were hesitant to use technology in lessons, as the internet connection was just too unreliable. This meant that home learning, communicating with parents and using up-to-date online teaching resources was pretty much out of the question - a significant disadvantage compared with most other primary school pupils.

That has all changed thanks to Borrowdale’s new gigabit-capable connection, delivered by Openreach in 2020 as part of BDUK’s Rural Gigabit Connectivity (RGC) Hubs Programme.

Staff are now increasingly using online resources, and the school has invested in iPad Minis that are available for all pupils. Head teacher Ralf Smits says that pupils researching a topic in class can now easily look things up, and staff are becoming more confident in using the online resources available to them.

Mr Smits says that the new connection has also made a huge difference for communicating with parents and home learning — creating a level playing field for pupils regardless of background. They are also now conducting parents’ evenings over Zoom.

There is an additional benefit that combines Borrowdale’s unique setting with their gigabit broadband — the school has installed paid-for parking for local hikers, providing a small income.

Since the school has been connected, the surrounding area is now also benefiting from the presence of fibre, with both business and residential premises being connected to high speed broadband for the first time.

BDUK will keep on connecting vital public sector hubs like Borrowdale CE Primary School, working closely with the Department for Education to connect even more rural schools to gigabit-capable broadband.

BDUK to become an Executive Agency of DCMS

The government announced in December that BDUK is to become an Executive Agency in April 2022 to expand its operations for the fast delivery of broadband rollout.

Becoming an Executive Agency will give BDUK more operational autonomy to focus on Project Gigabit as well as the Shared Rural Network, the £1 billion deal agreed with mobile network operators to end patchy rural mobile coverage and ensure 95% of UK geography has a 4G signal by the end of 2025.

While BDUK will remain legally within DCMS and retain a close relationship with DCMS policy officials, a key benefit of making BDUK an Executive Agency will be a robust new governance structure. Its new management board will incorporate a non-executive chair, executive members and non-executive members, thereby providing an extra layer of expert scrutiny and technical oversight.