Scotnet Bring 100Mbps Broadband to Scotland’s Ardnamurchan Peninsula

Some 300 homes across Scotland’s most westerly mainland point – the Ardnamurchan Peninsula – now have access to superfast broadband speeds of 35 – 100Mbps after local ISP Scotnet, supported by the government’s voucher scheme, deployed a new Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) network to serve the area.

According to the Scottish Government, local premises previously only had access to broadband speeds of just 1-4 Megabits per second (Mbps), although this isn’t entirely correct as some parts of the Peninsula (e.g. Kilchoan) do have access to speeds of 24Mbps or greater via Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC / VDSL2) lines.

A mixture of masts (pictured) providing radio links and fibre in the ground were harnessed to provide the new network, while SSE were thankfully able to power the masts using a locally metered supply (this isn’t always possible in remote locations). By the looks of it, this deployment is using radio kit from INFINET wireless, although it’s difficult to identify the specific antenna as they’re all quite similar.

Stuart Glendinning, Scotnet Director, said:

“We faced many challenges throughout this build, but given the backing of the local community and landowners we’ve been able to deliver a transformational broadband service.

We’ve used several technologies to help traverse the hilly and sparsely populated land, even crossing water at points. The R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme has really enabled us to build at scale and provide what several residents have called ‘life-changing connectivity’. It’s been great to see the positive impact this has had, especially through recent times where many people have felt the effects of the pandemic.

Where possible, we worked with SSE to power the masts with a locally metered supply. Getting machinery in and out of the remote locations relied upon some creativity, but the masts are now well protected from the salt air, livestock and should blend in well with their surroundings.”

Sadly, it’s not revealed precisely which area the new network covers, and they provide no information on any packages, prices or the project’s total deployment cost. Scotnet’s website is similarly devoid of any useful information and doesn’t look to have been updated for a long time. We really wish the Digital Scotland team would provide a bit more information alongside these announcements.

However, after a bit of Googling, we did find mention of another community-focused ISP called Sunart Networks that also claims to work with Scotnet. The provider appears to have deployed a wireless network across some of the same area (coverage map) and charges from £34.99 per month for an unlimited (Fair Usage Policy) 30Mbps (10Mbps upload) package on a 12-month term.

But Sunart Networks warns that peak-time speeds could dip below 15Mbps and the FUP appears to consider that monthly usage above 400GB is a breach of their policy (Ofcom says the average UK fixed line user does 453GB). People who go above this may face additional charges, speed limits or even “withdrawal of service” – all things that would irritate the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), due to the promotion of an “unlimited” service being in conflict with such measures.