Boost to speeds as broadband cabling is rolled out
MORE than 1.5 million households and businesses across Scotland now have high-speed fibre broadband as part of a major roll-out programme.
Engineers have laid some 2,800 miles of fibre cable – equivalent to walking the West Highland Way 30 times – and built more than 4,700 roadside green cabinets to deliver the connections.
The properties have been connected through BT’s commercial fibre roll-out and the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband partnerships with the Scottish Government, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, UK Government, local authorities and the European Regional Development Fund.
The 1.5 million total includes homes and business premises from Gretna in Dumfries and Galloway to Lerwick on Shetland via more than 173,000 premises in Glasgow, 152,000 in Edinburgh, 98,000 in Aberdeen, 56,000 in Dundee and 26,000 in Inverness.
Deputy First Minister John Swinney said: “The scale of delivering fibre broadband in Scotland shouldn’t be underestimated and this announcement shows how hard engineers are working.
“We are still in the early stages of the Digital Scotland Super f a st Broadband programme and without it thousands of Scottish homes and businesses wouldn’t have had access to high-speed technology.
“It’s a fundamental part of the Scottish Government’s aim to deliver world-class c on ne c t iv i t y by 2020, enabling people across Scotland to connect any time, any place, anywhere using any device.”
The Digit al Scotland Super fa st Broadband programme aims to provide fibre broadband infrastructure to parts of Scotland not included in commercial providers’ investment plans.
It consists of two projects – one covering the Highlands and Islands and the other covering the rest of Scotland.
More than 220,000 propert ies have so f ar been connected through the Digital Scotland project.
Combined with commercial roll-out plans, 85 per cent of premises in Scotland will have access to fibre broadband by the end of 2016 and 95 per cent by the end of 2018.