R100 Gigabit Broadband Build Reaches 80,000 Premises in Scotland

The Scottish Government (SG) has today revealed that more than 80,000 premises have now benefitted from their £697m Reaching 100% (R100) project with Openreach (BT), which is rolling out full fibre (FTTP) broadband to remote rural areas. Some 27,000 premises of this have been delivered over the past year, which is up from 20,000 the year before.

Just to recap. The R100 scheme originally aimed to reach another 113,000 premises – split across three contracts – in areas that lack access to “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) by March 2028. LOT 1 (North Scotland and the Highlands) is expected to cover around 61,000 premises by 2027/28, while LOT 2 (Central Scotland) was due to reach 32,000 by 2023/24 and LOT 3 (Southern Scotland) targeted 22,000 by 2024/25.

According to today’s update, R100’s rate of delivery is now exceeding the SG’s Programme for Government commitment by more than a third. Connections have been made right across the country, from the Killantringan Lighthouse in Dumfries and Galloway to Stornoway in the Western Isles and Baltasound on Shetland.

The update also confirms that “80% of all R100 contract build” has taken place in rural areas (we assume the other 20% to be more focused upon poorly served suburban areas). We’ve pasted a more detailed summary of the progress below.

Just for some wider context. At the end of 2024 around 80% of premises in Scotland could access a gigabit-capable (1Gbps download) broadband ISP network and this falls to 65.5% when only looking at FTTP technology (here). Ofcom predicts (here) that Scotland’s full fibre (FTTP) coverage will reach around 92-94% by May 2027 and gigabit-capable broadband (FTTP + Hybrid Fibre Coax / cable) should deliver 94% by that same date.

Business Minister, Richard Lochhead, said:

“Fast, reliable broadband is a fundamental building block for economic growth. The Scottish Government’s R100 programme is one of the most ambitious and complex digital infrastructure programmes in Europe, rolling out connections in some of the most challenging locations in the country to help businesses and communities prosper.

Despite telecommunications being reserved to the UK Government, our commitment to the R100 programme illustrates this government’s commitment to delivering the digital connectivity people and businesses need to succeed.

Exceeding our 2024-25 delivery target was helped by record Scottish Government funding and an ongoing partnership with Openreach maximising the opportunities to deliver fast broadband to even more homes and businesses.”

Robert Thorburn, Openreach Partnership Director for Scotland, said:

“It’s brilliant to see businesses like the Steamship Sir Walter Scott benefitting from full fibre. We’re committed to making sure that the hardest-to-reach homes and businesses in Scotland are connected to the latest generation of broadband technology, giving them access to the same fast, reliable services available in our cities.

While building new full fibre networks in rural areas throws up many challenges, our engineers have the skills and experience to overcome these and deserve an enormous amount of credit for their work. We’re proud of the role we’ve played, working alongside the Scottish Government, in hitting this significant milestone – but we know that our work isn’t done yet, and we’ll continue to connect communities across the country.”

The R100 work is still ongoing and we should add that Openreach (BT) has also recently secured the £157m state aid supported Project Gigabit broadband roll-out contract for Scotland (Call off 6), which will extend FTTP to an additional 65,000 premises in remote rural areas (here). A couple of smaller Project Gigabit contracts for Scotland are also still in the procurement phase.

Take note that the R100 budget also covered some related efforts, such as the deployment of new subsea fibre links to help reach various remote Scottish isles, and funding for the complementary voucher scheme etc.