Thousands of homes and businesses across the north and north-east now have access to superfast broadband that will allow multiple users within a property to access it as the same time.
First Minister in-waiting Nicola Sturgeon announced today that the service – up to 80Mbps – was now available in parts of the Highlands, Moray and Shetland.
The roll-out is part of an “ambitious” programme to connect a further 150,000 homes and businesses in communities across Scotland through the £410million Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband partnership.
The BT service – which enables people to download and share content faster than before – is now available in more than 120 locations including Kemnay in Aberdeenshire, Scone in Perthshire, Sumburgh on Shetland, Leuchars in Fife, Milton of Leys in Inverness and Selkirk in the borders.
So far, engineers have laid around 186 miles of sub-sea cable and 1,491 miles of cable on land – enough to stretch from Shetland to Land’s End in Cornwall and back again – and installed around 600 new street cabinets to house connections as part of the Digital Scotland roll-out.
Ms Sturgeon said: “The roll-out of superfast broadband will allow more households to connect to fibre broadband services for the first time, as well as giving businesses the opportunity to enhance their services.
“Today marks another significant step for Scotland and the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband partnership.
“This is the fastest roll-out of its kind anywhere in the UK, passing 150,000 premises in record time – an engineering feat of the kind for which Scotland is renowned.
“Right here in Inverness, Culloden and Milton of Leys more than 8,000 homes and businesses can now benefit from our roll-out.
“As well as the project being available in urban areas that weren’t previously covered by fibre broadband, like Dyce in Aberdeen, it is also reaching rural communities, such as Cullen and Aberlour in Moray, who will benefit greatly from the business opportunities fibre broadband brings.
“Across Moray as a whole, one in two homes and businesses can now choose to connect to fibre broadband.
“We are still in the early stages but already thousands of Scottish homes and businesses are able to take advantage and sign up.
“They simply wouldn’t have had access to high-speed technology without this ambitious partnership project.”
The Digital Scotland roll-out consists of two projects – one covering the Highlands and Islands area and the other covering the rest of Scotland.
They are being delivered on the ground by BT, which is investing £126million in the programme.
Funding partners include the Scottish Government, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, the UK Government through Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK), local authorities and the European Regional Development Fund as well as BT.
BT Scotland’s fibre programme director Liz Mallinson said around 1.4million Scots could now access fibre broadband on the Openreach network.
Stuart Robertson, director of digital at Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), said: “This public investment is creating a brand new fibre network right across the Highlands and islands.
It will change the way people in many of our remote, rural and island communities use broadband, opening up new opportunities.
“It’s great news that we have now brought fibre based broadband to more than 30,000 homes and businesses in Argyll, Highland, Moray and Shetland and this is just the start.
“We are also making great progress both on land and subsea building the network which will bring better broadband closer to all.”