The Ministry of Digital Governance’s action to subsidize families and companies, through a voucher, to connect to the internet with speeds of at least 250 Mbps, will be implemented in the coming days.
Under the name Gigabit Voucher Scheme and based on the action budget of 80 million euros, each beneficiary will receive a reduction of 200 euros in connection fees and in the fixed monthly payment for two years. Based on the dimensions mentioned above, the beneficiaries will be around 400 thousand families and companies.
The aim is to increase fiber penetration in home and business networks (FTTH) so that the country can move more quickly from copper to optical fibers.
Today, FTTH network coverage in the country reaches 40% of connections, but the use of this new network is only 10%.
The Gigabit Voucher program will be combined in part with Smart Readiness, which concerns the subsidy for the installation of fiber optic cabling infrastructure with speeds of up to 1 Gbps in 120 thousand properties in the country. In other words, some of those subsidized with a voucher for high speeds will also have to make use of Smart Readiness.
The Gigabit Voucher funding will come from the Public Investment Program (PIP) and the Recovery Fund – TA (57.124 million and 22.875 million respectively), with the Ministry of Finance recently announcing the inclusion of the action in the TA.
The procedure for including beneficiaries in the action will be announced in the coming days by the Ministry of Digital Governance. In accordance with the practice that has been followed in similar cases, each beneficiary, after authenticating with their personal taxisnet codes, will enter the platform that will be created and issue their voucher, then choosing, after analyzing the network availability for their area, the provider with which they will be connected.
