£2m to Foster Gigabit Broadband for 57 Public Buildings in Aberdeen

The Scottish Government has announced that the city of Aberdeen is to receive £2m of public funding to extend Gigabit (1Gbps) ultrafast broadband connectivity to 57 “key public buildings” (e.g. schools, health and community centres), which forms part of a regional £254m investment package.

The extra investment will be welcome news for the city, although it’s worth remembering that Cityfibre has already announced work to extend their existing business FTTP network in the city by an extra 30km in order to reach 100+ public sector sites (here). In other words, we wouldn’t be surprised if this £2m goes towards another expansion of that same network.

However £2m is still just a drop in the ocean for this sort of connectivity and isn’t going to have a huge impact on residential connectivity, which seems to be how Fergus Ewing is associating it below. On the other hand it’s entirely possible that Aberdeen could become one of the first cities chosen by Vodafone and Cityfibre for their joint FTTH network (here). Today’s announcement might help that prospect.

Fergus Ewing, Connectivity Secretary, said:

“Fast and reliable broadband is a key driver of economic growth. This is why we are committed to delivering 100% superfast broadband access across Scotland by 2021, along with enhanced connection speeds for key premises in Aberdeen.

By providing fast and reliable broadband, capable of Gigabit speeds, we are transforming Aberdeen into one of the UK’s best connected cities, unlocking greater commercial investment in the future.”

End.