£95m projectto boost internet

Thousands of homes and businesses in Renfrewshire are set for a broadband boost following a £95m Scottish investment by Openreach.

The local authority is one of 50 communities across Scotland will be upgraded following the latest build announcement, with a ‘full fibre’ broadband network to be built to most premises in these areas.

Inverness and East Kilbride are the largest locations to benefit, with Ecclefechan in Dumfries and Galloway and Stow in Scottish Borders among the smallest.

The digital network provider has now reached more than six million homes and businesses across the UK with ultrafast broadband, around 480,000 of them in Scotland.

The latest plans follow news earlier this year that around 300,000 Scottish homes and businesses would get access to Openreach’s new network, mostly in rural and harder to serve areas.

Katie Milligan, chair of the Openreach board in Scotland, said: “Good connectivity is vital whether it’s to work from home, access education and care services, or for gaming and streaming entertainment - and that’s why we’re investing across the UK to upgrade our network to 25 million premises.

“Our engineers and build partners are reaching more communities every week and we’re not just building in cities and urban areas many rural and hard to reach communities are already benefitting and we plan to reach many more in the coming months and years.”

Economy Secretary Kate Forbes said: “Our Reaching 100% (R100) programme including our investment of £600m in the R100 contracts - ensures that everyone in Scotland can access superfast broadband.

“With Openreach’s latest commercial investment of £95m, this will ensure more than 50 of our communities will be able to access even faster full-fibre broadband.”