Superfast, ultrafast and gigabit capable broadband infrastructure - Open Market Review: request for information - January 2025

11. Evidence to demonstrate how planned investments are credible

There are three essential areas against which we will evaluate your planned coverage claims to ensure the overall credibility of your planned investment. Our assessment will be based solely on the suite of evidence you provide in your Supporting Evidence Pack and will include:

• technology - whether the technology you have deployed and intend to deploy is gigabit-capable and meets the technical criteria as outlined in Annex D
• deliverability - whether your deployment plans are in line with the phases/premises passed outlined in your business plan, with the key build stages and processes outlined
• commercial/financial viability - whether you have credible commercial plans, such as sufficient access to capital and whether the drawdown of your funds aligns with your deployment plan and build programme

The information you provide should be consistent across these elements to support a joined-up evaluation of your responses.

In assessing whether planned investments are credible and viable, we may:

• review the business plans and calendar deployment plans to ensure these are consistent and in sufficient detail for each phase of the planned build
• require evidence to demonstrate credible and plausible character of the planned investment which as a minimum should include a business plan, a detailed calendar deployment plan, evidence of adequate financing, consideration of risk and proposed technical architecture
• ensure calendar deployment plans include the key build stages and when suppliers expect to undertake significant activities within their build programme such as design, surveying, acquisition, network build, network installation etc or the key processes involved in your build plan approach for design phase, survey phase, road notices/ wayleaves etc
• test that funding availability is sufficient for each phase of the planned build and that the capital allocated is sufficient and is consistent with the deployment plan
• review the terms of any financing arrangements and any dependencies and assumptions associated with the financing including repayment terms, KPIs, expected ROI, dependency on public subsidy such as Vouchers or regional subsidy schemes
• ensure that the network design and dimensioning information provided is in line with the projections made in the business plan regarding customer connections and growth expectations.

Further information is included in Annex C and the Supporting Evidence Pack.

If your future network plans are entirely reliant on public subsidy/interventions (e.g. Vouchers) it may not be necessary to provide a fully completed Supporting Evidence Pack alongside your data submission.

As set out within the Open Market Review and Public Review Subsidy Control Classification Guidance^[8], planned Voucher build will be classified as White unless a Voucher has been ‘issued’ or ‘claimed’ in which case it will be classified as Under Review and Grey respectively. Classification of Voucher build will be based on Scottish Government held data of Voucher status for both GBVS and SBVS.

In all cases please do provide us with a full data submission.

Please note that in line with the published guidance (Open Market Review and Public Review Subsidy Control Classification guidance^[9]), we may be required to reclassify your coverage determinations previously determined as Gigabit Grey or Gigabit Under Review should the evidence no longer meet the requirements of a previous Subsidy Control Categorisation.