DfE Gigabit Infrastructure Subsidy – Regional Supplier Contract for Northern Ireland

Overview

The UK Government has committed GBP5bn to enable hard-to-reach communities to access gigabit-capable broadband. This is being spent through a package of coordinated and mutually supportive interventions, collectively known as Project Gigabit. Project Gigabit, is a UK Government intervention to provide a subsidy to support the deployment of a gigabit speed broadband network to cover premises across Northern Ireland that would otherwise not be provided with access to gigabit broadband speeds, as these premises do not present a commercially viable investment for a private sector operator. Project Gigabit is a strategically important initiative for Northern Ireland’s society (people and businesses), is a key enabler for delivering the DfE Minister’s Economic Vision, and will help to maintain Northern Ireland’s connectivity and infrastructure at a level that is competitive with Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland and is attractive to inward investment. As part of this DfE, along with Building Digital UK (BDUK), is developing a procurement approach to incentivise the telecoms market to invest in delivering gigabit capable wholesale infrastructure in areas not considered to be commercially viable for new infrastructure. This procurement approach will be a successor to the much-needed Superfast broadband programme and DfE’s broadband intervention, Project Stratum. The overarching aim of Project Gigabit is, simply stated, to provide universal, or near universal, gigabit-capable broadband coverage in Northern Ireland by increasing provision in areas which are currently poorly served and not capable of attracting wholly commercial investment. The project aim can be categorised into three key objectives: • Address market failure, whilst maintaining and promoting competition within the market. It is currently not commercially viable for telecoms service providers to extend gigabit-capable broadband infrastructure to many of the presently unserved premises in Northern Ireland. • Maximise gigabit-capable broadband coverage in a way that is balanced and supportive of rural areas and communities. • Choose procurement and delivery options which seek to maximise value for money (in terms of a balance of quality of technology/products, coverage, timescale and cost to Government), mitigate risk, incentivise performance and meet affordability criteria for Government and for end users.