Fife Receives GBP150k Injection to Boost Fibre Broadband Cover

The Fife Council in Scotland has confirmed that another £150,000 of additional funding has been set aside to help bring superfast capable broadband services to the final 1.6% of premises (2,800 homes and businesses) in the county.

At present the wider Digital Scotland initiative is working with BT to roll-out “high-speed fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) services to 85% of premises in Scotland by the end of 2015/16 and 95% by the end of March 2018, which rises to the stronger figure of 98.4% for Fife alone (176,000 premises).

The money represents a fairly small investment for a BT based project and so instead the local authority has called on Community Broadband Scotland (CBS) to help it find an alternative network solution, such as perhaps a fixed wireless broadband network. On top of that the council also plans to improve local public WiFi coverage from the same pot.

Lesley Laird, Deputy Council Leader, said (The Courier):

“Fast internet access is essential for Fife–based firms and residents to increase connectivity, boost business growth and drive competitiveness. That’s why Fife Council is investing in this new infrastructure that will further transform the ability of Fife to attract investment, create jobs and help make Fife the best place to do business.

The additional funding and new projects are crucial steps in enabling people across Fife to get connected at home or work any time, using any device.”

However as Thinkbroadband correctly points out, the above news article talks a lot about superfast broadband (24Mbps+) coverage and yet the original 98.4% figure appears more likely to reflect a raw “fibre broadband” footprint (i.e. including sub-24Mbps areas).

On the upside there will be a lot of fibre optic capacity cables running around Fife and those may make it easier to establish a fixed wireless solution, should that end up being the chosen direction. Certainly you’d usually need a lot more than £150K to cover 2,800 premises with any kind of FTTx (“fibre”) based service.