Member Article

CityFibre offers businesses free connections to replace Government’s Connection Voucher scheme

CityFibre has responded to the sudden suspension of the government’s Super Connected Cities connection voucher scheme, by offering businesses free connection to its pure fibre networks in Aberdeen, Coventry, Edinburgh, Huddersfield, Peterborough and York. The offer is open to over 55,000 businesses within reach of CityFibre’s networks in its project cities and ends on November 5th.

Since the Government scheme began in 2014, over 40,000 businesses have used the voucher scheme, but many potential applicants will have been caught off guard when the offer was suspended last week. As a supporter of the programme and its initiative to upgrade the nation’s business connectivity, CityFibre will waive connection fees costing up to £2500 usually paid by new customers.

There is strong support for the direct benefits that state-of-the-art fibre networks bring to businesses; studies show internet-related economic activity in the UK will grow to 12.4% by next year – up from 8.3% in 2012. Despite this, Ofcom figures show nearly a fifth are unhappy at not being able to access the broadband speeds they were led to expect.

Commenting on the offer, James Thomas, director of operations at CityFibre said: “We were great supporters of the government’s connection voucher scheme as a catalyst to encourage businesses to upgrade to ultra-fast services and more modern pure fibre networks.

“We are delighted to be able to help those businesses that have missed out on the voucher, giving them a final chance to get connected to transformational services on future-proof pure fibre infrastructure in the cities we serve.”

All interested businesses are able to register their interest in the offer by visiting the CityFibre website. All registered businesses are subject to survey and if eligible, details will be passed to CityFibre’s Internet Service Provider partners to follow-up.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Katrina Cliffe .