Categories: BroadbandNetworks

BDUK Spends £5m On Superfast Broadband Marketing

The government spent £5 million of Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK)’s budget on marketing the advantages of faster speeds to consumers and businesses between September 2014 and February 2015.

A print, TV and outdoor advertising campaign was launched late last year in a bid to increase adoption of superfast broadband, the rollout of which has been aided by government funding through BDUK in order to cover areas deemed to be not economically viable by commercial deployments.

The campaign advertised both consumer services as well as the availability of vouchers worth up to £3,000 for SMBs to upgrade their connectivity.

BDUK marketing cost

Figures released by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) detailing transactions of more than £25,000 show several payments to media agencies for advertising and creative agencies for the production of marketing materials.

The largest of these was a £1.08 million payment to Carat UK in February. ISPreview also notes DCMS spent an additional £921,586 on administration fees during the same period.

The government is targeting 95 percent superfast broadband coverage by 2017 and as of May 2015, BDUK had handed out £301.4 million to local authorities with 2.4 million premises connected. Local government must match any public funding received, while BT, which has won the vast majority of BDUK cash, has investment significant amounts of its own money too.

Separately, 26,255 super connected city vouchers have been issued to date, with £39.9 million handed out at an average of £1,521 per business.

BT’s rivals have argued BDUK has effectively provided state assistance to the company, and Sky has said the fact the government has had to advertise superfast broadband itself shows competition has been distorted.

However the government will likely point out that the increased awareness has resulted in benefits for the taxpayer. BT’s adoption forecasts have increased from 20 percent to 30 percent in BDUK areas, requiring the company to return £129 million to authorities, which can reinvest in further coverage.

What do you know about fibre broadband? Take our quiz!

Steve McCaskill

Steve McCaskill is editor of TechWeekEurope and ChannelBiz. He joined as a reporter in 2011 and covers all areas of IT, with a particular interest in telecommunications, mobile and networking, along with sports technology.

Recent Posts

Google Jarvis AI Extension Leaked On Chrome Store

Seemingly accidental leak reveals Google is developing Jarvis AI extension that can browse the web…

2 days ago

Amazon Mulls New Multi-Billion Dollar Investment In Anthropic – Report

Amazon is reportedly in talks to pump billions of dollars more into AI start-up Anthropic,…

2 days ago

FTX’s Caroline Ellison Begins Her Two Year Prison Sentence

Star witness for the US prosecution of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, has begun her two…

2 days ago

More Layoffs For iRobot Staff After Abandoned Amazon Deal

After axing 31 percent of its workforce when it failed to be acquired by Amazon,…

3 days ago

Mozilla Foundation Confirms Layoffs, Eliminates Advocacy Division

Mozilla Foundation axes 30 percent of its staff, and is eliminating its Advocacy Division that…

3 days ago

Google To Make MFA Mandatory Next Year

Improving security. Mandatory multi-factor authentication (MFA) is coming to the Google Cloud by the end…

3 days ago