Orkney Completes Phase One Rollout of “Fibre Broadband” in Scotland

The Highlands and Islands Enterprise has announced that Openreach (BT) have completed their original state aid supported Phase One roll-out of faster “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) services to the remote Scottish archipelago of Orkney, which forms part of the wider £410m Digital Scotland project.

Previously properties around Orkney had to be supplied by an old Microwave (radio) wireless link, although a few years ago this was complemented by a new sub-sea fibre optic link and since then Openreach has been able to deploy their ‘up to’ 80Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC / VDSL2) network to cover 75% of homes and businesses (8,500 premises) via 54 new street cabinets.

The area is home to around 20,000 people and sadly not all of those will be able to receive “superfast” (24Mbps+) speeds, but it’s still an impressive achievement for such a remote community.

Stuart Robertson, HIE Director of Digital, said:

“This project has brought mainstream fibre optic services to many parts of Orkney for the first time. Across Orkney today more than 6 out of 10 premises are able to order broadband with download speeds of more than 24Mbps.

Given there was no mainstream fibre based broadband in Orkney, it’s a great first step for communities and businesses. There is further to go, and the Scottish Government is developing the next project [R100] which aims to bring access to superfast to all by 2021.”

In the meantime we understand that the roll-out through the current project is expected to continue until March 2018, which is thanks to some “additional funds” (i.e. reinvestment of existing public funding) due to “good take-up of services” (i.e. clawback from BT) and efficient project delivery.

Unfortunately no detail is offered to clarify precisely how much investment is being used for this extension or how many additional premises could benefit, although it’s unlikely to be a huge figure.