Original article ISPreview UK:
The UK Government (DSIT) appears set to revise their Project Gigabit contract with rural UK ISP Wessex Internet for Dorset and South Somerset (Lot 14.02), which originally aimed to build a full fibre (FTTP) broadband network to cover “around” 21,400 hard-to-reach premises. But the contract value has now been increased to £38.2m and fewer premises are set to be reached.
Before we get started it’s important to understand that Project Gigabit’s contracts are not static and their scope, as well as committed levels of public funding, can change over time for a number of different reasons – informed by regular ‘Open Market Reviews’ of existing UK deployment plans. For example, commercial operators may expand or reduce their roll-out plans in the same region, which can reduce or grow the scope for public investment within those same contracted areas.
NOTE: Project Gigabit aims to help extend gigabit broadband (1000Mbps+) ISP networks to “
nationwide” coverage (c.99% of UK premises) by 2032, focusing mostly on the final 10-20% in hard-to-reach areas. Some 89.6% of premises can already access such a network (
here), with
Ofcom forecasting between 91% and 97% by January 2028 (
here).
The contracted operator could also find the deployment to be more expensive, or possibly even cheaper, than previously envisaged. Such adjustments may occur due to changes in build costs and interest rates / inflation, as well as any unexpected obstacles to street works or greater efficiencies of build than planned or expected.
Suffice to say, there can be various reasons why the contracted scope of related builds and the level of allocated public funding may change over time, although at ISPreview we generally only pay attention to bigger or more unusual changes (minor ones happen all the time).
The Lot 14.02 Modification
The original Lot 14.02 contract for Dorset and South Somerset was announced for Wessex Internet back in April 2024. As above, the official announcement valued this roll-out at £33.5m (public subsidy) and aimed to cover around 21,400 premises. But the latest modification notice states: “The value of this contract has increased by £9,482,533 from £28,736,039 to £38,218,572. The awarded premises have increased by 12,313 premises from 7,224 to 19,557.”
Put another way, the modification has increased the contract value by several million pounds above the original announcement from 2024 and will, at the same time, also deliver fewer premises. The modification notice states that “additional scope and premises from the deferred scope drawdown [have been] added to the contract in accordance with the UK subsidy control regime.”
One key point to consider above is that the public facing Project Gigabit announcements often leave out some key details around the expected impact of Deferred Scope and Under Review premises. The Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency will only provide subsidy to target premises that have been designated as ‘White’ (i.e. no other plans exist for these to get gigabit broadband over the next 3 years).
However, premises which have been designated as ‘Under Review’ (i.e. those that commercial builds by other providers aim to reach, but where that roll-out is deemed to be at risk) may later be included within the Deferred Scope of a procurement. Where this is the case, a further review will be undertaken to confirm whether they can be included into the contracted build.
In short, Project Gigabit’s contracts can go through a lot of changes on their way to completion and the above is an expected part of that evolution, although clearly in this case it’s a roll-out that has become more expensive to deliver. The catch is that there may be further changes in the future, which could go in a different direction, so it’s not always easy to tell what the final picture will be until you actually get near completion. So far, Wessex Internet has already built to nearly 2,000 premises under this contract (here), so there’s a way to go yet.
A quick note about South Wiltshire (Lot 30)
The contract for Lot 14.02 wasn’t the only one of Wessex Internet’s Project Gigabit builds to see a modification yesterday. A smaller but somewhat confusing change also occurred on their South Wiltshire (Lot 30) contract, which was originally announced to be valued at £18.8m and aimed to cover “around” 14,500 hard-to-reach premises in the area (here). Readers may recall that an August 2025 modification had previously increased the value of this to £24m and expanded its coverage target to 21,197 premises (here).
However, the latest contract modification note for Lot 30 appears to contradict this, and states: “The awarded premises has increased by 549 from 18,239 to 18,788 premises.” But it’s presently unclear why this modification notice appears to have ignored the figure of 21.19k in the previous notice from August 2025, although the core change relates to the same “deferred scope drawdown” reason as Lot 14.02 above.
We’re inclined to believe that the 18,788 premises target is the correct one as it’s used elsewhere by BDUK, although we’ve put the question to Wessex Internet and will report back once they respond.
