Community Dig Brings Openreach FTTP Broadband to Remote Scottish Estate

Around 60 homes and businesses in the remote rural Sutherland hamlet of Altnaharra (Scotland) can now access Openreach’s (BT) new 330Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) “ultrafast broadband” network, thanks to new equipment and a community dig to lay 4,800 metres of cable.

The significant cost of deploying “full fibre” networks into rural areas remains a huge barrier for large commercial operators like Openreach, although the company claims that they’ve already halved those costs over the last year and the lessons they’ve learnt from Altnaharra (a 36,600-acre estate) will inform their wider strategy (including the aim to build a large-scale FTTP network, possibly to as many as 10 million UK premises by around 2025).

The details on this PILOT are frustratingly thin, although we know that Openreach tried some sort of new “network configuration” in the area and they also made use of a specialist digging machine called the Ditch Witch to help quickly bury armoured cable into the soft roadside verges (note: our picture is from a similar Openreach pilot and Ditch Witch’s also come in several different forms).

However one of the most interesting developments was the fact that Openreach were able to involve workers from the Altnaharra Estate, who helped to dig in around 4,800 metres of cable. This will no doubt have saved quite a bit of money. Unfortunately the exact details of the arrangement are not known, although we have seen them use the community approach before and even Virgin Media have tested something similar.

Clive Selley, Openreach CEO, said:

“We promised the people of Altnaharra and Skerray their new ultrafast services by this autumn, and we’ve delivered to the majority in Altnaharra ahead of schedule and are on track in Skerray.

They’ll see their internet connections rocket from some of the slowest speeds in Scotland to some of the fastest, and it’s great to hear that the first local residents and businesses are already making use of the new, ultrafast network.

We’re 100 per cent committed to using our digital expertise and innovation to bring high speed services to as many remote communities as possible, including supporting the Scottish Government in their ambition to reach every premises in Scotland.”

The first ultrafast fibre services have also gone live in nearby Skerray, with engineers from Openreach continuing work over the “next few weeks” to reach more households and outlying Altnaharra properties. Previously many local properties struggled to get even 1Mbps, let along 330Mbps.

Hopefully the “unique partnership” demonstrated in Altnaharra will soon become much more common.

UPDATE 12:55pm

We got a bit more detail on the concepts that Openreach have tried during the pilot.

* In Altnaharra and Skerray they’re assessing a new concept, building fibre from new nodes off the spines direct to local properties with support from the local communities

* In Altnaharra, the Altnaharra Estate dug in new cable which crosses its land while in Skerray, residents who live some distance from the core network agreed to dig in sections of cable to their properties.