Scotland Reveals Next 40 Communities for “Fibre Broadband” Upgrades

The Digital Scotland scheme, which is working alongside BT to roll-out “high-speed fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) networks to 85% of premises in Scotland by the end of 2015/16 and 95% by the end of March 2018, has today named the next 40 communities (20,000 premises) to benefit.

So far the current project has helped to put the faster connectivity within reach of an additional 455,000 homes and businesses across the country and by completion it should have helped to cover a total of 750,000. A future contract may also add to this.

Meanwhile the first connections in today’s latest batch of upgrades should start to go live during Spring 2016.

John Swinney, Scotland’s Deputy First Minister, said:

“We are now into the second year of the £410 million Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband (DSSB) programme and progress continues apace. The roll-out of high-speed broadband has now reached 455,000 homes and business, with on average 7,000 more able to connect each week. Many of these were once thought to be out of reach because they’re linked directly to telephone exchanges, or are located in more rural locations.

Areas going to benefit from access to high speed broadband for the first time in the coming months include towns like Linlithgow and smaller villages such as Bridge of Dun. The Scottish Government is committed to delivering first-rate connectivity in Scotland by 2020, ensuring we are a world class digital nation.”

As usual we have pasted a tentative (subject to change) list of all the newly planned upgrades below. Many of the areas are new (listed first), although quite a few are also infill (i.e. extending FTTC/P coverage in areas that have already been partially upgraded) and we mark these in a separate table below.

Digital Scotland’s Current Funding

HIE – The Highlands and Islands (£145.8m):
• £126.4m from public bodies (Scottish Government, Department for Culture, Media and Sport [BDUK], Highland and Islands Enterprise and all seven local authorities that form part of the project area)
• £19.4m from BT.

RES – The Rest of Scotland (£264m):
• £157 million from public sources (Scottish Government, ERDF, Department for Culture, Media and Sport [BDUK], and all 27 local authorities that form part of the Rest of Scotland Project area)
• £106.7 from BT.

It’s also worth pointing out that additional public funding has been made available from the central Government’s Broadband Delivery UK programme and through Clawback from BT (here), although Scotland has yet to announce a related Phase 2 contract.

New Areas

Infill (Extensions)