Scotland’s R100 Fibre Broadband Build Won’t Finish Until 2028
A new Freedom-of-Information (FoI) request has revealed that the Scottish Government‘s £600m Reaching 100% (R100) project with Openreach (BT), which is extending fixed “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) across rural parts of the country (predominantly via FTTP), is now not expected to reach full completion until March 2028.
Firstly, a recap. The R100 contract is split between three LOTS and focused on extending 30Mbps+ capable connectivity across as many of the final c.5% of poorly served premises in Scotland as possible. LOT 1 (North Scotland and the Highlands) is expected to cover a further 59,276 premises (100% via FTTP), while LOT 2 (Central Scotland) will reach 32,216 premises (95.6% via FTTP and the rest FTTC) and LOT 3 (Southern Scotland) will reach 20,740 premises (100% via FTTP).
Overall, around 112,000 premises were previously expected to be covered through the three R100 contracts by around 2026/27. Most of LOT 2 and 3 will actually finish well before then, around 2023/24, but LOT 1 will take longer because it’s focused upon the much more challenging ‘Highlands’ region and, on top of that, it suffered a significant delay following Gigaclear’s legal challenge (here).
Back in July 2022 we reported that Openreach and the gigabit voucher scheme had so far completed the R100 coverage for “more than” 9,800 premises, which is up from 5,900 in Feb 2022 and 5,300 in Dec 2021. The latest FoI reveals that 14,353 premises have been reached by the R100 programme, which leaves 100,516 left to reach (slightly increasing the original coverage target to 114,869 premises).
However, the FoI response highlights that the rollout may take a little bit longer than previously indicated, with some exchange areas in LOT 1 now having to wait until March 2028.
The contracts are delivered in phases. There are number of exchange areas with an expected delivery date of March 2028. However, it is not possible for us to say with certainty which of these will be last as this will be determined by our contract deliver partner, Openreach.
For reference, we expect build for each of the three contracts to conclude in the years set out below:
- Central: 2023/24
- South: 2024/25
- North: 2027/28
The data also includes a breakdown of how many premises in each Local Authority (LA) area are expected to benefit, once completed.
Total Properties to be Connected Through R100
| Local Authority | Total Premises to be Connected |
| Aberdeen City | 623 |
| Aberdeenshire | 16058 |
| Angus | 6639 |
| Argyll and Bute | 8474 |
| City of Edinburgh | 602 |
| Clackmannanshire | 1046 |
| Dumfries and Galloway | 8806 |
| Dundee City | 124 |
| East Ayrshire | 2196 |
| East Dunbartonshire | 454 |
| East Lothian | 1334 |
| East Renfrewshire | 259 |
| Falkirk | 1396 |
| Fife | 5421 |
| Glasgow City | 74 |
| Highland | 12773 |
| Inverclyde | 874 |
| Midlothian | 1479 |
| Moray | 4888 |
| Na h-Eileanan an Iar | 2206 |
| North Ayrshire | 2161 |
| North Lanarkshire | 2089 |
| Orkney Islands | 3326 |
| Perth and Kinross | 8301 |
| Renfrewshire | 679 |
| Scottish Borders | 7416 |
| Shetland Islands | 2429 |
| South Ayrshire | 2516 |
| South Lanarkshire | 5494 |
| Stirling | 2979 |
| West Dunbartonshire | 612 |
| West Lothian | 1141 |
Meanwhile, we’re still waiting to hear how Project Gigabit’s funding for Scotland (aka – Lot 39) will be handled, although the Building Digital UK (BDUK / DCMS) programme has warned that the final 0.3% of the UK (i.e. under 100,000 premises) may be too expensive for even that project to reach with full fibre (a lot of that will be in Scotland). A range of alternative proposals for this are currently still being consulting upon (here) and trialled (here).
The Scottish Government is currently also known to be “engaging further with suppliers to understand the potential level of interest in new gigabit procurements in Scotland” (extract from Project Gigabit’s most recent update).
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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Why does it take a Freedom of Information request to force them to divulge the allocation and spending of public funds? There is something fundamentally wrong with the way this project is being mishandled.
Whole project feels very corrupt. The resultant will be more like ‘R60’ NOT R100 –
At two times the cost and three times the timescale. Inept. Incompetent. Inefficient.
Another disgraceful howling mess originating from devolved Government of Scotland.
Absolute hyberpole, and way to miss the point that broadband is a Westminster competency. Well, ‘competency’. As the article says, devolved governments and local authorities have to step in because Westminster’s targets are insufficient.
Go back to bed. You’ve clearly had too much to drink over Xmas.
This a good time to mention that the end date for the UK-wide program is 2030?
Don’t you think the lower population density and number of remote communities in Scotland just might be a contributing factor to the costs? We don’t exactly have an Outer Hebrides, Highlands or Isle of Skye in England, do we?
How much of the delay is caused by miserable Tories moaning about poles?
Mark, do we have any idea of who will not be included at all ?
It will only cover 60% so 114K is 60% of the 190K below 30Mbs, so at Mar 2028 there will still be 76K with below 30Mbs connections.
So there’s zero commercial build in Scotland that’ll pass some of the premises not served by R100, John?
@ XGS, You do realise the R100 properties were the ones least likely to get commercial rollout So following on from that, The ones not served by R100 are the ones both commercial build and State funded build didn’t want to touch, Not likely that they’re going to be ‘passed’ by anyone.
R100 is a carry over from the previous DSSB project which focused on getting FTTC into rural exchanges. R100 is for the properties too far away from those exchanges for the FTTC speeds are lower than ADSL. So the only non BT commercial rollouts will be 4G or wide area WiFi. So as Gary says ‘No Chance’. Ultimately they will need to be covered by Starlink or similar. They really should stop calling it R100, it breaches the trade descriptions act (as its Govt the act does not apply) as does their website which still implies the project completion date of 2028 will cover 100%.
190k are below 30. Some of them will be covered by commercial builds. Until we know how many of those there are we cannot know how much R100 will cover.
I don’t have access to this information. John: have you seen the rollout plans from all the operators that’ve been submitted to R100?
@ Garry H
“You do realise the R100 properties were the ones least likely to get commercial rollout So following on from that, The ones not served by R100 are the ones both commercial build and State funded build didn’t want to touch”
I don’t think the above is true.
I believe R100 covers those not covered by a commercial rollout or the original government supported one.
However R100 doesn’t cover the most expensive properties – they are trying to cover as many as they can given the funding available.
I’m confused as to what part of my comment you don’t think is true, In your response you have basically said exactly what I did.
R100 was for non commercial and either not or poorly served properties under previous schemes, The ones left out of R100 as its not really R100 its More R99 so Me for example are not going to be covered commercially were not covered under any previous scheme for FTTC and are not getting an R100 connection either.
Ispreview, There’s the bot above looking to get people to visit some other site… you need to add that short of messages to your blacklist… I saw a few of those on here… also he is chatting some horsepoo, and should be banned.
Looks like the SNP have had their fingers in the cookie jar again.
Stinks like another ship building disaster.
How dare you question the wisdom of our Glorious Leader? Our Great Protector? (Not to mention our ‘Chief Mammy’…..)
Did you hear your Tory Liam Kerr MSP on the radio the other day complaining about speeding?
What are you Unionists complaining about? You are the party of slow speeds.
https://twitter.com/LiamKerrMSP/status/1607349349310255112
Go slow with the Unionists!
Trying living in a Tory dominated council area like Aberdeenshire.
The only reason my town has FTTP is bacause Tories can’t block in the council planning process.
@Martin,
If we’re taking this into politics then try living in an Entire country held back by the SNP and its Unicorn sparkles click bait policies,
Or we could stick to Broadband/telecoms relevant discussion, In what way are ‘the Tories’ blocking FTTP deployment in towns (not yours)
@garyH it was @Hb that made a comment “SNP have had their fingers in the cookie jar again” – I gather the case against a Unionist Tory Peer is under investigation and won’t comment. It was the Unionist that made the unsubstantiated comment, not me.
I live in a country held back by Tories (Anti-Growth-Conservatives) who won’t even give us shops in Aberdeenshire. Look at how long it took Aldi to get planning permission for their shop in Macduff. Ironic that the Tories chums the COOP (Labour chums) were the main objector.
https://upa.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=R23MS6CAGNO00&activeTab=summary
Reality of Tories holing back Scotland.
I was then naively conned by the 100 in R100, as to me “reaching” something is not the same as merely “reaching toward” something. The first meaning “arriving at” and the second “failing to arrive at”. The last people will presumably be those most in need, no? Perhaps a further project would address their needs, maybe with FTTP, maybe with long range RF WANs, or 5G or 6G. What do we think?
The UK Government has the BDUK Project Gigabit referred to in the article which will cover some/most of those not covered by R100
Remote rural 5G ? not going to happen.
If we’re already looking at 6 years for R100 to complete, don’t hold your breath for a further project, Eventually people will actually come to terms with the fact more studies and consultations regarding what to do about the remaining ones left out, just wastes even more money that could have provided actual connections and sooner.
Remote rural 5G is basically not viable in the highlands of Scotland. I suggest you visit it and then when you realise it’s not like anywhere in England stop making stupid suggestions.
2030 looks more promising for the UK
to get most Premises connected to FTTP,
but then will shall have to start again
when Openreach launches Hallow Fibre
in a year’s time or so
Openreach has already trialled it
Openreach aren’t going to be using hollow core fibre for broadband any time soon. There’s absolutely no point and big reasons not to.
Useful for very specific services: cutting down latency for high frequency trading, data centre extension, more wavelengths on the same fibre but no value using it to serve homes.
The runs are too short for it to make much difference to latency, use of PON is much more a cause of latency. The fibre going to homes isn’t going to carry tons of wavelengths.
Noting the reduction in latency on a PON connection is less than 1ms. The distribution layer of fibre is never going to be replaced with hollow core, even if they finally get it into mass production which as of now they have not.
Indeed. A 10 km fibre run going from speed on normal fibre of about 2/3rds c to c you’ll save less than 17 microseconds – just under 50 microseconds to just over 33.3.
When you’re talking 1,300 – 1,600 microseconds for media acquisition over PON, assuming zero congestion, and that’s just to get to your OLT it’s not really worth the expense.
This ignoring that it’s actively harmful to PON due to the increased loss. If it’s installed some ONTs would need replacing with higher rated versions as they just saw their signal power quartered. Networks running XGSPON and above can happy be run on 1:128 splits. They don’t need loads more loss.
Can’t say I am surprised. The commercial roll-out in the towns of rural Scotland has a good 2 to 3 years of work to go. Takes us to late 2024 and into 2025. Once that is complete, it starts to release staff to work on R100 etc…
All the remote farmhouses, hamlets and villages will then have to be started on. Add to that the really remote parts of the Highlands and Islands…
+1 to this.
In all the wailing and moaning about not getting it or how lang its taking people do seem to lose track of the sheer scale of ‘rewiring’ the entire UK phone network.
Do remember that the reason it is rather delayed was due to Gigaclear taking the Scottish Government to court. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/08/gigaclear-settles-broadband-lawsuit-with-scottish-government.html
Truth be told it was the first Scottish referendum delayed the Scottish Government R100 procurement by two years. The court challenge didn’t help but the extensions to the original contracts have pushed out the contract end dates.
Fergus Ewing was going to resign if R100 was not delivered by end of 2021… whatever happened that SNP promise???
We were upgraded to 21st Century Internets a few months ago.
Was 5.5Mb down, 0.4Mb up.
Now 900Mb down, 110Mb up.
Me, happy.
Its worse than this.. The government are covering up the fact BT fail to deliver national infrastructure and extending to 2028… They just gave then additional 36M taken from the R100 pot money to BT, which should not be allowed when BT said they could not deliver to these locations. Yet the Government have and have taken this investment away from ISP’s/altnets.
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2022/08/scotland-unveil-36m-extension-of-r100-fibre-broadband-rollout.html
Where was the procurement for this, and why wasnt this investment offered to the altnets to deliver? This shouldnt be allowed and breaks all procurement rules for sure.
The Scottish Minister involved has simply done a CALMAC and passed money (backhanders) to BT to cover up the R100 mess by hiding the numbers. This delivery is 5 years + and surely this indicates BT has lied in its tender for the Lots 1/2/3 and cannot deliver anywhere, yet still Scottish Ministers turn a blind eye and still hand them money and take away from Virgin/CityFibre and Altnets.
ITS WRONG.
By the time half of this joke project is thru Starlink will be the cheapest way to deliver the internet – why the hell are we digging trenches all over remote Scotland – someone has gone mad!