Openreach Update on Progress of Project Gigabit Builds in Scotland

Network access provider Openreach (BT) has issued a progress update on their deployment of a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP network across rural parts of Scotland. This forms part of their £157m (public subsidy) Project Gigabit contract (here) with the UK government to upgrade 65,000 premises (albeit managed by the Scottish Government).

Just to recap. Openreach has previously been chosen to deliver all of Project Gigabit’s Cross-Regional (Type C) procurements (here, here and here) via a Single Supplier Framework agreement (here) – currently reflecting £745m in total public subsidy to help upgrade 297,000 premises to full fibre technology in some of the hardest to reach parts of rural England, Scotland and Wales (i.e. premises with no prior access to gigabit connectivity). The value of this could also be raised up to £1.2bn in the future as more builds are added (here).

The areas covered by these Type C contracts typically reflect locations where no or no appropriate market interest had previously been expressed before to the Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency, or areas that have been de-scoped or terminated from a prior plan. Areas like the ones above are often skipped due to being too expensive (difficult) for smaller suppliers; all the other contracts have gone to smaller alternative networks.

Openreach has today issued a few additional progress updates on their related Project Gigabit contract for Scotland (Call off 6), which reveals that their engineers have now started deploying in Aboyne, Dunure, Fisherton, Aberfoyle, Balfron, Drymen and Killearn. More than 1,600 properties across Aberfoyle, Balfron, Drymen and Killearn already have access to Full Fibre broadband, plus a further 1,400 properties in the Aboyne if we include their separate commercial investment.

Scotland’s Business Minister, Richard Lochhead, said:

“Bringing faster broadband across Scotland is a key priority for the Scottish Government, and it’s encouraging to see Project Gigabit starting to make real progress alongside our £600 million R100 programme.

Fast, reliable internet is essential for modern life – it supports businesses, enables remote working and attracts new opportunities for our rural economy. We will continue to work closely with partners to maximise the impact of public investment and deliver these benefits to every part of Scotland.”

The new service, once live, can be ordered via various ISPs, such as BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Vodafone and more (Openreach FTTP ISP Choices) – it is not currently an automatic upgrade, although some providers have started to do free automatic upgrades as older copper-based services and lines are slowly withdrawn. But it’s important to reflect that Openreach won’t always reach 100% of premises in every location they target on the first pass.