Slow Shetland Islands Speeds as Broadband Demand Outstrips Supply

Apparently BT is having to draw up an urgent plan to tackle broadband capacity problems on the remote Shetland Islands, which resides off the northern coast of Scotland. Locals have reportedly noticed a huge fall in their Internet speeds after the operator’s first “fibre broadband” (FTTC) connections went live last year.

Until fairly recently the only way to get Internet connectivity over to the Shetland Islands was via an old Microwave (radio / wireless) connection, but thanks to efforts by Shetland Telecom this was eventually complemented by a new submarine fibre optic cable that connects via the undersea SHEFA-2 line (linking the Faroe Islands with mainland Scotland).

Meanwhile BT are also buying capacity from Shetland to Faroe and back to the UK on the nearby Farice1 cable for resiliency. The operator has similarly been using Shetland Telecom’s fibre to give them a route from Lerwick to Maywick. As such BT was last October 2014 finally able to announce the first roll-out of their ‘up to’ 80Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Cabinet services (here), which benefitted around 4,000 premises.

The roll-out on Shetland is far from complete and indeed Shetland News confirms that another 11 telephone exchange areas are due to be upgraded in the very near future, including Brae, Gott, Hamnavoe, Scalloway, Sandwick, Skellister, Sullom Voe, Vidlin, Voe, Walls and Weisdale.

But there’s a problem, the uptake of BT’s new service has been so strong that it’s sucking up capacity like a nuclear powered Dyson vacuum cleaner and as such some premises have seen their new superfast speeds become superslow.. again.

A BT Spokesman said:

“We’re aware of broadband speed issues affecting some users in the Shetland area and we’re sorry for any impact on local people. Our planners are currently drawing up an action plan to optimise capacity in the local network to improve speeds. This will be implemented over the coming weeks.”

At this stage it’s not clear precisely how BT will “optimise” the capacity, although it may just be a matter of buying extra from their fibre optic suppliers and making a few tweaks. Under the current roll-out plan some 76% of people on Shetland should eventually benefit from the on-going deployment, although the local authority are keen to find ways of pushing this to 100%.