Scotland’s R100 Full Fibre Broadband Build Hits 20,000 Premises
The Scottish Government has published a brief progress update on their £600m Reaching 100% (R100) project with Openreach (BT), which reveals that over 20,000 premises have now been covered by their rollout of a new “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) ISP network (inc. almost 3,000 connections also delivered via vouchers).
At present over 95% of premises in Scotland already have access to such a network and a further 114,869 premises are planned to be covered across the three R100 contract LOTs by March 2028 (here and here). LOT 1 (North Scotland and the Highlands) is expected to cover around 59,000 premises (100% via FTTP) by 2027/28, while LOT 2 (Central Scotland) will reach 32,000 premises (95.6% via FTTP and the rest FTTC) by 2023/24 and LOT 3 (Southern Scotland) will reach 21,000 premises (100% via FTTP) by 2024/25.
The latest figure of 20,000 premises completed – across the whole of R100 – represents an increase from the 16,600 reported last month (plus 2,800 connections via vouchers), but there’s clearly still a long way to go. The focus on remote rural areas means that the deployment pace will be fairly slow, although it’s already running years behind the original target of achieving completion by the end of 2021.
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Not that any of this has stopped the Scottish Government from repeatedly, and perhaps somewhat misleadingly, trying to claim that “all homes and business across Scotland had the ability to access a superfast broadband connection by the end of 2021” (Richard Lochhead MSP). But this is not the case and their voucher scheme has not delivered it either (it can’t solve every area and many people don’t even know it’s an option). If vouchers were the solution, then neither R100 nor Project Gigabit would be needed.
Meanwhile, we’re still waiting to hear how the UK government’s Project Gigabit funding for Scotland (aka – LOT 39) will be handled, although the first procurements should launch sometime “later this year“. Speaking of which, it was reported last week that some 447,170 premises across Scotland may need support from public funding to help them gain access to a gigabit-capable (1000Mbps) broadband service (here), which could rise if existing deployment plans (inc. commercial builds) fall short.
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, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Devolved to Westminster? AFAIK devolution as a principle is from Westminster
It’s a “reserved power” at Westminster.
Should read: “responsibility for broadband is reserved by Westminster”
R100 finally got my rural property on fttp after many years of 1mbps ADSL and 4g service, right on schedule too. FTTC had never been available so this is obv a big upgrade for many people who felt left out for a long time.
Shame it took this long but it is a big project that had some amount of legal timewasting and is finally delivering, good to see every rural pole strung with fibre.
I so am so happy I am getting TrueFibre FTTP on 4th April 2023 via Openreach I am getting 200 Mbps down and 30 Mbps up. I would’ve loved City Fibre because I would’ve got 200 Mbps both up & down but they’re Not doing Fife just now. I have clue why there continuing to rule out rubbish FTTC VDSL2 basically DSL.
I do apologise for the spelling error
Still waiting after many years of promises of better broadband coming soon, but can see it coming. Gave up on 3Mbps ADSL to use faster but very variable 4G. Was due R100 availablity by 2nd quarter 2022, then end of 2022, now by end of march 2023 (can’t see today happening). Ducting put in place last December, fibre in place and terminated, I’m assuming, something needs to connect up the local work.
‘all homes and business across Scotland had the ability to access a superfast broadband connection by the end of 2021”
Really? I get 10Mbps down from an FTTC connection 2 miles away. Is this the definition of superfast now?
Been told by the digital team at Aberdeenshire County Council that fibre not planned for us at all. Given satellite, radio link and 4g as alternatives. Commercial companies recommended are either too expensive, their services not upgradeable or have limits on download amounts. Starlink not available as an official supplier. Currently sticking with EE 4g on an unlimited data plan as quicker than copper line and more likely to survive the rotten copper cabling we have to the house currently.
The tech giants should just admit it ADSL ADSL2+ VDSL copper in general is dead copper isn’t any good