WiFi vouchers for rural families

RURAL families with poor broadband will be given cash vouchers worth hundreds of pounds to spend on challenger internet providers under plans being drawn up by No10.

Senior government sources have become convinced that “sleepy” BT is failing to innovate, and want a major shake-up to encourage smaller broadband providers to step in.

It is hoped families in remote communities will join forces and spend their vouchers on experimental pro- viders, such as one that installs WiFi satellites on church spires.

The proposals are being worked up by Theresa May’s team for a Green Paper on competition in consumer markets to be published in spring.

Yesterday Ofcom, the telecoms regulator, revealed that a quarter of all properties in rural areas – nearly a million in total – still do not have decent broadband.

Steve Unger, Ofcom’s group director, said it was unacceptable that so many people were struggling to get broadband, and urged ministers to improve

coverage in the countryside. The Daily Telegraph is running a Better Broadband campaign to highlight the damaging impact of poor internet coverage in rural communities.

The Government has proposed that every Briton should have the legal right to request access to internet speeds of 10mbps by 2020. But there are still 1.4 million homes and offices across Britain – 5 per cent off all properties – without broadband that fast.

Whitehall figures fear that BT, which has an effective monopoly on installing fibre broadband, will not connect rural communities quickly enough.

So they are preparing radical steps to help smaller providers, including handing out vouchers for broadband from any supplier. “There a whole load of these insurgent providers using different technologies and they are not relying on fibre,” a senior Whitehall source said.

“I can imagine 500 houses in a village and they’ve all got their voucher. The parish council comes together and says, ‘We will hear from five providers and choose one of them’.”

WiSpire, a broadband provider partowned by the Church of England, is one innovative firm that has impressed government figures. The company connects church towers with WiFi to give broadband to areas too remote to get internet otherwise.

A similar broadband voucher scheme was introduced for businesses in December 2013 but ended last year, with around 55,000 vouchers issued in total.