Joint Press Release of the Ministry of National Economy and Finance and the Ministry of Digital Governance

As of yesterday, November 18, 2024, those interested can apply for the “Gigabit Voucher” at gigabit-voucher.gov.gr, in order to obtain a super-high-speed connection. It is an important action implemented in the context of the cooperation of the Minister of Digital Governance, Dimitris Papastergiou and the Deputy Minister of National Economy and Finance, Nikos Papathanasis, enabling more than 379 thousand households and small and medium-sized businesses to acquire connection with a speed of at least 250 Mbps. “Gigabit Voucher” is a development project with a total budget of 80 million euros (including VAT) and is financed from the Recovery and Resilience Fund with resources in the region of 23 million euros and from the Public Investment Programme with more than 57 million euros.

In conjunction with the “Smart Readiness Vouchers” Programme for the installation of optical fiber in 120,000 buildings, the aim is to strengthen broadband throughout the country and improve Greece’s position in the international ranking, as reflected in the European Commission’s annual report for “Digital Decade”.

Beneficiaries will receive, without income criteria, a voucher worth 200 euros to cover part of the cost of acquiring a Gigabit service (at least 250 GBPs), and more specifically the cost corresponding to the initial connection, as well as the monthly fee for the first 24 months of the subscription.

These are households and small- and medium-sized businesses that do not already have a broadband connection with a nominal download speed of more than 100 Mbps and reside or have their seat/branch, respectively, in the Programme intervention areas. The grant is given only once to each beneficiary, while they cannot be supported by any other source, national or European.

More specifically, to issue and redeem the “Gigabit Voucher”, the interested parties:

• Must check the map on the Program website to find out if they can get Gigabit services based on their home or business address. Must type in the address to find out if they are covered by the providers’ networks in order to apply.
• Must select “Submit Application” and log in with their Taxisnet credentials to start the submission process.
• Next, they must state whether they are interested in receiving a voucher for an existing or new connection. Then, they must fill in the additional information required and finally accept the terms and conditions of the Programme in order to complete the voucher issuance process.
• The interested parties receive the voucher to their email address, as well as in a text message sent to the phone number provided in their application.
• They then contact the provider from whom they wish to receive the Gigabit service, quoting the voucher number they issued.

Please note that the providers will post their offered services for information purposes on the Programme platform and must meet the following conditions:

• To have either a download speed greater than or equal to 250 Mbps or a symmetrical speed greater than or equal to 100 Mbps. The above minimum speeds should be available to the beneficiaries during peak hours.
• To include the terminal equipment for the end user (modem/router) necessary for its operation
• To provide a discount at least equal to the amount of the voucher in relation to the corresponding plans (with the same speed characteristics and included by-products) that were offered during the period before the announcement of the Programme.

It is recalled that the availability of Gigabit Connectivity Vouchers will take place in four phases, which are related to building connections through the “Smart Readiness” Programme. The first phase will be completed with the release of 200,000 Gigabit connectivity tokens, during which 60,000 Smart Readiness building connections must be completed.

The “Gigabit Voucher” Programme is implemented by Information Society.