Broadband vouchers created local monopolies in the UK countryside
Key Points
- Voucher postcodes mostly ended up with a single fibre network
- Dorset voucher areas had 12% choice against 45% elsewhere
- Kent voucher areas had 22% choice against 44% elsewhere
- Suppliers said rural areas cannot support more than one network
- Vouchers still helped smaller providers grow nationally
Government broadband vouchers left most rural homes with just one fibre network to choose from.
The finding comes from the final evaluation of Building Digital UK’s legacy voucher schemes, carried out by consultancies Hatch, GC Insight and Belmana.
The Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme and the Rural Gigabit Connectivity scheme gave homes and businesses between £1,500 and £3,500 each towards a gigabit connection between 2017 and 2021.
Suppliers could pool vouchers from neighbouring premises to fund a single network build in areas they would otherwise not reach.
The evaluators compared postcodes where people used vouchers against postcodes where they did not, using government coverage data from January 2025.
In Dorset, only 12% of premises in voucher postcodes had access to two or more gigabit networks, against 45% elsewhere in the county. Two-thirds of premises in voucher postcodes had access to a single network.
Wessex Internet handled over 80% of the 1,448 vouchers in Dorset. Its network covers large parts of rural Dorset but none of Bournemouth, Poole, Dorchester or Weymouth, where rival networks cluster.
Kent showed the same pattern, with 22% of premises in voucher postcodes able to choose between networks, compared with 44% in other postcodes.
Trooli used 54% of Kent’s 2,821 vouchers and Openreach used 35%. Even in Kent’s cheapest areas to build, just 5% to 11% of voucher premises had a choice of network, against 36% to 56% elsewhere.
In Lancashire, where B4RN led delivery, the share of premises with a choice was almost identical in voucher and non-voucher postcodes. In the county’s hard-to-reach areas, voucher postcodes had a lower share with a choice, at 13% against 16%.
Blackburn was the main exception, where 6G Internet used vouchers to build a network that now competes with Virgin Media, Openreach and brsk.
Cambridgeshire had a higher share of choice in voucher postcodes, at 63% against 56%, but the evaluators linked this to the city of Cambridge already hosting several networks.
Suppliers told the evaluators that rural areas could not support more than one network because of low population density and high build costs. Some described an unwritten understanding across the industry not to build where another alternative network was already present.
Several said their business models aimed for local exclusivity so they could recover their build costs over time. They argued that in many of these areas, the alternative to one network was no service at all.
Some smaller suppliers raised concerns about Openreach and Virgin Media building over their networks. They said losing even a small share of customers could threaten their survival.
The vouchers did bring gigabit coverage to homes that had none. In Lancashire’s hard-to-reach areas, 23% of premises in voucher postcodes lacked any current or planned gigabit network, against 35% in other postcodes.
The evaluators found vouchers boosted competition at national and regional level by helping smaller providers grow. Airband, Truespeed and Trooli all saw turnover rise alongside their voucher use.
One supplier told the evaluators its headcount grew from 20 to 200 over three years, which it put down mainly to the voucher programme.
