The Deputy Minister of National Economy and Finance of Greece, Nikos Papathanasis, announced on television the arrival of the Gigabit Voucher for households and businesses.
A new kind of subsidy to enter the world of fast and online internet, Nikos Papathanasis announced today. This is the Gigabit Voucher program that concerns households and businesses and subsidizes with a total of 200 euros part of the installation costs as well as costs for hardware (router supply) and monthly subscription.
The subsidy only applies to homes and businesses and you'll need to be connected to a connection of at least 250 Mbps download or 100 Mbps symmetrical speeds for businesses. We don't know where they found it written 250 Mbps and who offers it, so you assume they mean 300 Mbps.
Beneficiaries of the program are those who do not have already broadband with download speeds greater than 100 Mbps and reside or have their headquarters in areas where the service is offered.
In short, those of you who have a 100 Mbps connection, good to go, pay as usual, while those of you who don't, get a discount to finally get in, so we can build a state with full online connectivity.
With this logic, we suggest that they provide a completely free data connection to mobile phones so that we are all permanently connected and can be found immediately. After all, it has become mandatory to have a smartphone, otherwise you can't even open a bank account. The mandatory purchase and use of smartphones remains to become a law of the state.
We quoted... let's get back to the news. This subsidy, however, ensures that the providers will offer their services at a discount, which will correspond at least to the amount of the voucher, in relation to similar programs offered in other regions of the country.
Small and medium-sized enterprises, including freelancers, can also benefit from the subsidy. However, those already subsidized through the Super-Fast Broadband action, as well as legal entities operating in sectors excluded from the subsidy, are excluded from the program.
Mr. Papathanasis said in this regard:
"I'll tell you an example. An apartment building had the Smart Readiness program which was the free entrance of fiber optic to the apartment building. From then on, however, you had to pay for the optical fiber to come to your apartment.
Now we come with a Gigabit Voucher to pay for ourselves, so that fast internet can come from the apartment building to your apartment.
Therefore a complete package: and for the optical fiber to come to the apartment building and from there to everyone's apartment. There are no criteria. It is for everyone, all Greek women and men and businesses.
So it is a program which is important, which again is funded by the Recovery Fund partly and by our national arm partly as well. It is an important program for all homes."
The budget of the program amounts to 80 million euros, it comes from the Recovery Fund and the aim is to subsidize households and small and medium-sized enterprises for a period of two years.
The "Gigabit Connectivity Voucher" program will run through the Gov.gr platform and interested parties can apply to receive the subsidy voucher, which will cover part of the installation costs and the high-speed Internet subscription.
