Angus Council Approves Major Superfast Broadband Rollout Plan

Some 93% of homes and businesses in Angus (Scotland, UK) could soon be within reach of a fibre optic based broadband service after the regional council approved a plan that will see at least £2m of public money (between 2014 – 2016) being used to help fund the deployment.

The Angus County Council said that additional funding could potentially also come from their application to the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and it’s likely that a private sector partner, such as BT, would then be able to help further boost the total investment.

Richard Stiff, Chief Executive of Angus Council, said (The Courier):

“Angus Council is investing £2 million in the Step Change Project with an emphasis on maximising the number of premises that can access fibre broadband. The combined investment is expected to take overall fibre coverage in Angus to over 93% of premises from a starting point of less than 70%.

Nearly half of Angus’ deployment is expected to be delivered within the initial phases of the project, giving many rural homes and businesses an early opportunity to take advantage of high-speed broadband. In addition at least 2MBs will be delivered to areas with no basic broadband.”

However Stiff, whom has possibly the best name in all of creation, warned that more investment would be needed otherwise it might “not prove possible” to supply everybody with the minimum Internet download speed of 2Mbps, “particularly in the most remote locations“.

The project forms part of the overall £264m Digital Scotland scheme, which aims to ensure that 85% of Scottish homes and businesses can access BT’s “high-speed fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) network by the end of 2015 and around 95% by the end of 2017. This is partly funded through the wider Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) budget.