Superfast broadband grants of up to £3,000 are now available for Fermanagh small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).

Announced at a Digi Day West digital marketing conference in Enniskillen on Tuesday, the Broadband Connection Vouchers Scheme is funded by the UK’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and will be delivered locally through a partnership between Belfast City Council and Fermanagh and Omagh District Council (FODC).

“We were delighted to facilitate the announcement of the Broadband Connection Vouchers Scheme at the Digi Day West event,” comments Yvonne Maghey, Manager of Fermanagh First Stop Shop, which organised the event.

Project Manager for the Belfast Connection Voucher Scheme, John-Paul McGonigle told the Digi Day West attendees that Belfast’s ‘Superconnected Cities’ voucher scheme provides SMEs, charities and social enterprises with grants of up to £3,000 to get high-speed broadband connections into their premises. He said that Belfast City Council is currently in discussions with all of the new super councils to work in partnership to expand regionally and announced that agreement has been reached with FODC.

To date, the DCMS’ Broadband Connection Vouchers Scheme has only been available in Belfast and Londonderry. In December 2014, the Chancellor George Osborne announced that the UK Government will make up to £40 million available from April 2015 to March 2016 to support further cities to administer scheme.

Mr. McGonigle explained that connection vouchers will be made available on a first come, first served basis which means it will pay to get in early.

Local SMEs and social enterprises (with less that 249 employees) are entitled to claim £3,000 to cover installation of a superfast broadband service to improve and enhance the way they do business. As long as the new service delivers a significant step change to the current connection speed, the SME will receive a grant of up to £3,000 to cover installation. The SME is responsible for the VAT on the invoice but the £3,000 fee does not have to be paid back. The application process takes a matter of minutes and more information is available from The First Stop Shop at www.firststopshop.co.uk.

The cost of the agreement between Belfast City Council and FODC will be £8,000. A report put before the Regeneration and Communities Committee on Tuesday night recommended that FODC “approves that payment to enable the commencement of the Broadband Connection Voucher Scheme in the Council area.” Bluebox Broadband is one of the private companies currently delivering superfast broadband to SMEs across Belfast and Londonderry. Aidan Donnelly from Bluebox tells The Impartial Reporter: “We have planned significant investment in our network, including Fermanagh, to deliver superfast speeds of up to 100Mbps but the advent of this superconnected voucher scheme means that those speeds can now be deployed to many more businesses in a much shorter time,” he states.

“Bluebox are committed to putting Fermanagh business on a par with their counterparts in the current superconnected areas of Belfast and Derry by giving them superfast broadband speeds that will help them access large amounts of data in real time. That gives Fermanagh business people a genuine opportunity to work with greater speed, efficiency and flexibility by using services such as Voice Over IP and cloud storage.” Mr. Donnelly adds: “This is a very real opportunity for businesses in the Fermanagh area to take control of their own destiny and claim their share of the funding.” Other speakers at the Digi Day West event included ‘tweeting godess’ Samantha Kelly, a former winner on Ireland’s Dragon’s Den and founder of the twitter netowrk #IrishBizParty; former star of the Irish Apprentice and founder of the Digital Training Institute, Joanne Sweeney Burke; online reputation expert, Wayne Denner and Big Red Cloud CEO, Marc O’Dwyer.

Attendees received essential digital marketing tips and knowledge including social media, improving your search engine rankings, online brand reputation and digital strategy advice.