North Lanarkshire to Deliver Free Broadband to 36,575 Council Homes
The North Lanarkshire Council (NLC) in Scotland has today announced a “groundbreaking digital plan” that, over the course of between 10 and 15 years, will aim to ensure that “all council housing tenants” (36,575 homes) will gain access to “free internet access, a first for any Scottish council“.
The announcement is somewhat vague on the details of the internet service that tenants can expect to receive (i.e. it’s unclear if this will be a fixed line broadband or public WiFi style solution), although the council did say that it would be an “affordable, ultrafast, secure and reliable internet service” (certainly “free” is “affordable“, although it does seem odd to be using both of those terms together).
The goal of this project is to address digital exclusion, which can create barriers to knowledge, opportunity, skills and employability – particularly with more council and partner services now being delivered online. “The benefits can be life-changing, with increased choice and control over how they interact with services, faster access and improving their customer experience,” said the announcement.
Advertisement
Apparently NLC intends to adopt a “smart-home model” that is tailored to the needs of tenants. “Improved safety and security, energy efficiency, smarter operations such as CCTV and sprinkler systems and maintenance management are benefits for tenanted homes,” but it added that the opportunities for education, employability, health and social care and social inclusion were also “vast“.
Councillor Michael McPake, Housing Convener, said:
“Digital North Lanarkshire is one of the key priorities within Our Programme of Work and our 15-year deal with Commsworld to transform and improve connectivity across the region has delivered a 340km network of gigabit cable ultra-fast full fibre to support our exciting plans.
The benefits of providing a full internet service to our council tenants are far reaching. These can range from people being supported to live independently and having greater control over their care, to the use of SMART technology which measures temperature, CO2 levels and humidity, optimising heating and providing alerts to faults. It also helps improve customer service and experience by enabling seamless end-to-end processes to fulfil service requests.
We’re investing in digital and technological solutions that will benefit people, communities and business across North Lanarkshire.
By rolling out a full internet service to council tenants, we’re reducing the digital divide and offering increased choice and control over how tenants interact with key services. The effects of this programme will be felt for generations to come, improving access to increase opportunities and reduce inequalities allowing people to reach their full potential and prosper.”
As well as the lack of detail on precisely what kind of service and speed tenants can expect to receive, the announcement also lacked any information on the level of public investment involved or a clear explanation for why it would take over a decade to roll out. But we wouldn’t be surprised if the local authority offered a basic/restricted service for free and then provided paid upgrades for faster or more flexible tiers.
One other potential issue here could be the impact upon local market competition between established network providers, which may not be pleased with having their own packages and customer base undercut by a free alternative. Hopefully more details will surface in the near future.
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.
« TOTSCo to Begin Testing of UK Business Broadband ISP Switching in June 2025
Advertisement
Leave a Reply
Privacy Notice: Please note that news comments are anonymous, which means that we do NOT require you to enter any real personal details to post a message. By clicking to submit a post you agree to storing your entries for comment content, display name, IP and email in our database, for as long as the post remains live.
Only the submitted name and comment will be displayed in public, while the rest will be kept private (we will never share this outside of ISPreview, regardless of whether the data is real or fake). This comment system uses submitted IP, email and website address data to spot abuse and spammers. All data is transferred via an encrypted (https secure) session.
Not sure if I would want that, it is nice to have it for free I suppose, but I like to choose who i use. I certainly would not like them to control my devices.
I think it’d be more to control the council owned devices. I can imagine it being used to ensure mains powered smoke alarms are on, solar is on etc.
I don’t think this would stop you having your own connection
Do you ever have anything positive to say? Go stick with your soon to be bankrupt zzoomm and take your negativity somewhere else
Oh look, you are clever, you made up a name,
Zzoomm is not going to go bankrupt, they have just combined with another and even if they do, then such is life.
I am not a fanboy, just someone who like something that works and will promote it.
As for the free broadband, as I said, it is nice it is free and will certainly help people who are struggling, but sometimes free is not always good as you can have restrictions.
@Martin, A HA here did think about the same sort of thing with a local wireless broadband company, it did not come to anything and I think it was only going to be for older people and in certain places.
As for choosing your own broadband as well, maybe, I suppose for older tenants yes, but for new tenants they could put in the tenant agreement that they can’t.
I know someone who moved into a HA flat, not here, but in Cambridge, and they had to use the fibre service that was provided and could not have FTTC connected, which would have been cheaper.
Are you going to cover the Thomas v Cheltenham 5G judgement?
Surely that’s it for base masts anywhere near homes.
Good to hear your interpretation
What can those who finance this with their taxes expect?
Nothing! Exactly what you deserve
People who live in social housing pay taxes too. Plenty are in work.
No point working in this country anymore.
If you get a council house, you can buy and sell later at great profit, get fast internet before other areas where working people are still waiting and get it for free!
Of course, not all council house people are non-working, many work, but why free internet for them??? Talk about rub it in for others working and struggling because of no discounts or free services.
My thoughts too. Those people working and just above the line for help, so don’t get any are the ones struggling now. Anyone below that line and the Government throw help at them. They must be wondering if it’s worth struggling with a job anymore
i sometimes think why do I bother to work, when I see people who don’t with cars, smoking and going to shop and buying a load of scratch cards. don’t forget their brand new Iphones or expensive Samsungs.
Some of us who live in social housing work as you said, in fact a fair few do.
i have to go to work in around 20 minutes, not that I want to, flipping cold outside.
Having no internet can be a barrier to work and education. It’ll almost certainly be fairly slow internet, like the Social Tariffs a lot of ISPs offer to people on certain benefits, but it’ll give people who may not be able to afford internet (or perhaps more importantly, their children) internet access.
As you say, just because someone’s living in social housing, it doesn’t mean they’re not working, and people who need and can afford better speeds will pay for them.
100%
You are absolutely spot on.
If you look around we are living in socialist downfall..
> If you get a council house, you can buy and sell later at great profit
You will be pleased to learn the Right To Buy discounted council homes was abolished nine years ago.
I stay in North Lanarkshire and I really don’t see this happening. I have been waiting for them to repair my 6ft fence since 27th January.Council tax is up by 10% n £40 charge to empty garden bin.
£40 a year is not too bad to empty garden bins, Here it is £6.50 for five green plastic bags. Which is okay if you only have a small garden.
I pay Biffa £93 a year to supply a bin, but I must use it more, p;refer to give them money than our council any more.
My HA is useless at fixing stuff, 2 months just to fix the latch on the living window, I moved the latch from the kitchen window to the living room, just for some security.
Nice to see the usual subjects moaning, Why bother working? Etc etc etc
Well don’t then! If it’s so great on benefits maybe go join them
After all it’s easy to get them isn’t it so no issues there and you also live like a king too right?
Unbelievable
Why would someone give up their dignity and join you? If we stop working and paying for your upkeep, where and how will you end up?
Actually Mr Wonka, some benefits must be all too easy to get because the bill for working people is expected to balloon further to £70+ billion within 10 years.
So what has been the benefit for people, not necessarily very academic, getting their asses out of bed at 5am daily to get ready to commute to work and paying a mortgage for 25 years in an area that is the cheapest to buy, when someone else living in London or boroughs got right to buy a free council house at significant discount, to then sell it on at huge markup in later years and pocket the money, far more than the person who worked hard all their life in an area miles from London where their house nowhere near gone up as much.
Too many people who could work and playing the system because they are lazy. Others need sone help because they want to return to work but then get penalised not to, because the starting job is not enough to sustain them initially with extra help for a while.
Benefits and schemes cost vast money, and someone has to pay them. You don’t screw remaining hard working people over for the lazy ones. Genuine disabled, terminally I’ll, chronic health issues people could have a bit more were there not so many jokers trying to milk the system and never want to work even though they could. That’s a good part of why this country is broken, along with incompetent councils and politicians throwing money away.
The joke of it is, that this scheme may not be available to those people in the council houses where they are working, but only just surviving. They’ll probably have to pay, that’s an assumption agreed….
I wonder if it really is free or whether the cost is bundled into the rent.
As others have noted, when it goes down, well… don’t hold your breath. There’s a fence to be fixed first and a window latch and a whole heap more and the same contractor will eventually get round to bodging your connection with their usual care, skill and consideration of aesthetics that they usually apply.
Scotland has the highest income taxes. They are robbing the scots for more socialism
There is no such thing as a free government program. This country is lost
Surely life is milk and honey with the SNP 🙂
The extra funding under Barnet formula compared to people in England must mean everything is funded – oh wait, the SNP, with all its funding wasted with ferry scandals and independence brochures and funding of expensive consultants for it and such like. How many years have the party of false promises been in power now….
Hi. I live in North Lanarkshire and I am one of those council tenants. Oh and by the way I do work and pay taxes. The local gossip going around is that because the council is in a financial crises it would be cheaper to provide us all free internet and put all the councils services online, thus closing the various offices and keeping one central office. They could then sell the property/land and get rid of the overpaid staff. But its these staff that won’t let it happen. They will strike and whatever to ensure they keep their cushy jobs for life. Also a lot of streets in my town (Coatbridge) have not been upgraded to fibre to the premises. The fastest speed I can get is 45mb so people are wondering that the company’s that provide these services have been tipped off about these so called plans and thus don’t see the point in upgrading all the cables and wires. But at the moment its all just gossip, like the other local poster said I don’t see it happening.
Considering there has been a press release with this announcement, but no indication of what budgets or funding will be used, or any actual detail about what it means – it feels like a pie in the sky ambition, rather than an actual commitment. I do see the potential case for this. If the Local Authority invests in this ‘digital ecosystem,’ it would allow a whole revolution in how council services, and NHS services, are delivered. So, the long-term savings could in theory outweigh the likely very large up-front investment, and provide a real ROI. But, like Robert Wilson highlights – Local Authorities are laden with generational bureaucracy, with layers of management and political personalities that make such radical overhauls hugely difficult. Interesting to keep an eye on this, but I for one am sceptical about how it will actually develop.
So they’re basically saying they want to run smart homes to save costs and likely run it on a freemium model where you get a base connection free then pay to upgrade if you wish.
As for the other stuff, right to buy was abolished in Scotland years ago and I doubt Scottish income taxes or the SNP or other tosh mentioned has anything to do with North Lanarkshire council houses.