Digital Scotland rollout expands to hit 800,000 new premises
The £428 million Digital Scotland (DSSB) scheme which promises to bring broadband to premises in the extremes of the country says that it is on-course to extend fixed line services to cover 95 per cent of homes and businesses by the end of 2017.
The news means the BSSB project, which has been carried out alongside BT, will reach 800,000 additional premises since its start.
In June 2017 it was announced that 90 per cent of Scottish homes and businesses could potentially be outfitted with superfast broadband connections, delivering speeds of over 30Mbps. Since then, related coverage is heading towards 92 per cent.
The figures provided represent a national average, however, meaning that some areas will see less coverage than advertised.
Hard-to-reach areas and remote parts of the country are particularly susceptible to this: coverage drops to just 86 per cent for the Highland and Islands region for 2017, despite more than 860 new fibre street cabinets being operational in the area.
Fergus Ewing, Secretary for the Rural Economy and Connectivity in the Scottish Government, said that fast internet services are “vital” to the economic and social wellbeing of such remote communities.
Though progress has been made faster in Scotland than in any other part of the UK, Ewing warned that such upgrades “are not automatic” and that he was “not complacent” about achieving 100 per cent coverage by 2021.
He added: “I would encourage more people to check whether they are eligible on the DSSB website and contact a service provider of their choice to start receiving faster broadband.”
Matthew Hancock, the UK’s Minister for Digital, added to this call, saying that “more needs to be done” to ensure that businesses and the general public were not left behind.
He added: “We know just how important broadband is in the digital age, and we’ll continue to support Digital Scotland delivering on the ground so that by 2020 everyone in Scotland, and the rest of the UK, will have access to a fast, reliable and affordable internet connection.”
