HIE Opens Review of the Community Broadband Scotland Funding Scheme

The Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) has commissioned consultancy firm ekosgen to conduct a review of their Community Broadband Scotland (CBS) initiative, which has been running for five years and provides public investment to help setup new broadband networks in very remote rural areas.

So far CBS has provided funding to help support new broadband connectivity solutions in 14 communities and they’re working on another 15, although the recent problems with wireless ISP AB Internet have shown that such an approach doesn’t always work as intended.

Similarly some community projects have complained about delays with the admin side of things (here), although in fairness CBS has a difficult balancing act to play when assessing risk. Bigger network plans may also attract additional interest and delay from the EU due to State Aid rules.

The review will look at feedback from CBS fuelled networks that have already been deployed across rural Scotland, as well as those that are in the process of seeking future support. It will also examine a range of options for improving the scheme’s future delivery and look at how it might need to change in respect to the Scottish Government‘s new R100 programme.

Zoe Laird, CBS Director, said:

“Every community in Scotland wants fast and reliable broadband, and we want them to be able to get it. That’s the bottom line.

But the challenges can be really daunting. Geography is often a major obstacle. Distance is another. And the technical solution that works best in one location won’t necessarily be the right fit somewhere else.

We have also found it extremely difficult in some cases to engage commercial companies as suppliers who will share our ambition, and be willing to take these projects on.

With five years’ experience, and with further large-scale investment in broadband infrastructure planned by the Scottish Government as part of their Reaching 100% programme, we believe this is the right time to take stock, rigorously examine what’s been achieved, and apply the lessons we can learn to benefit communities across the country.”

Separately the wider £428m Digital Scotland project has already made “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) connectivity available to around 90% of Scotland, although this figure drops to just 73% in the Highlands and Islands region. The programme now aims to ensure that 95% of premises in Scotland are put within reach of a “high speed fibre broadband” network by the end of March 2018, which falls to 86% for the rural Highland and Islands region by the end of 2017 (here).

The Scottish Government’s future R100 programme envisages pushing “superfast broadband” out to reach 100% of homes and businesses by 2021, which is an aspiration that should be supported by the new CBS review. However the Government has yet to set out precisely how the goal of 100% could be achieved and there’s a big question mark over the level of funding.

Meanwhile the CBS review is expected to conclude by the autumn, although it’s not uncommon for reviews like this to cause yet more delays and confusion for projects that are currently seeking public investment. At the same time existing networks will be expected to show that they can deliver on the 30Mbps+ target and to declare their coverage plans. Getting all this detail together by the deadline will be incredibly difficult (such work can take months but the government want it far sooner).