Digital Scotland has announced that next phase of its Superfast Broadband programme will see superfast broadband speeds bring rolled out a further 145,000 Scotland premises over the summer.
The latest rollout will target areas such as Braemar in Aberdeenshire, Portpatrick in Dumfries and Galloway and Voe in the Shetland Islands. Engineers will rearrange the existing networks and lay cable to reroute lines through new road-side cabinets.
The first connections in the latest locations are expected to go live this autumn. Those singing up for the superfast fibre broadband be able to access download speeds of up to 80 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 20 Mbps through various service providers.
The announcement comes as part of BT’s £410 million digital Scotland superfast broadband programme which started in 2014 and has so far resulted in more than 3400km of fibre cable been laid across the country.
Programme director Sara Budge said “It is great to be celebrating the first year of deployment of the £410m Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme, while announcing that more exchanges will be included, with areas such as Portpatrick in the south of Scotland and as far north as Voe in the Shetland Islands being able to connect to fibre broadband for the first time.
“The project is developing a high-speed fibre network which is changing the face of broadband. By reaching out to those who would not have been covered through the commercial market – in towns and into some of our most rural areas – we are ensuring that the connections which are made will bring many benefits to the Scottish people at home and in business.”
Brendan Dick, director of BT Scotland, said “The rollout of fibre broadband across Scotland is one of the biggest and most complex civil engineering projects taking place in the UK today and we’re proud to be at the heart of it.
“It’s great to be announcing so many new locations this week as we celebrate our first, full year of deployment.
“In any project on this scale plans can change as engineering work progresses, for a variety of reasons. It’s important people understand that our plans aren’t set in stone but give the best possible forward view of where we expect to go next with the rollout.”
