'Revolutionary' £146m broadband boost unveiled
A £146 MILLION investment project to deliver high-speed fibre broadband across the Highlands and Islands is being announced today (Tuesday).
The project, led by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and delivered by BT, is being hailed as the UK’s most complex broadband project ever which will revolutionise communications across the North of Scotland
It means that around 84 per cent of Highlands and Islands homes and businesses will have access to fibre broadband by the end of the project.
The project will be announced this morning by Alex Paterson, HIE Chief Executive, at a contract signing with BT at HIE’s Cowan House base in Inverness.
Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: "Our decision to invest over £126 million in this project demonstrates the confidence that we have in the economic future of the Highlands and Islands.
"Today’s announcement signals the start of one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in Scotland’s history. It will connect communities across some of the most challenging landscapes in Europe and provides a platform for future economic development and regeneration.
"Next generation broadband enables businesses to compete on the international stage. It has the potential to transform the way in which we educate our children, provide health and social care and deliver our public services."
The geography and disparate population of the Highlands and Islands present significant technological and cost challenges for the commercial rollout of broadband. Estimates have indicated that without public sector support fewer than one in four properties would have fibre broadband via commercial rollout.
Alex Paterson, Chief Executive of HIE, said: "This ambitious project is a game changer for the Highlands and Islands. It will roll out modern, fast and reliable broadband to areas that could not have hoped to have it introduced commercially.
"It offers opportunities for new ways of working, innovation, enhanced public services, access to international markets and provides the infrastructure needed by business sectors like energy, life sciences, tourism and business services."
The public sector investment towards the contract is £126.4m. It is being delivered through the Scottish Government broadband fund, which incorporates funding from Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK), and also includes up to £12m from HIE’s own budget.
BT is investing an additional £19.4 million in the project, on top of its investment in its wider commercial roll-out for the region, taking the total project value to around £146 million.
BDUK is responsible for increasing access to broadband on behalf of the UK Coalition Government.
The project is by far the most ambitious and challenging rural broadband rollout BT has undertaken anywhere in the UK.
The company will build a fibre backbone with more than 800km of new fibre on land and install hundreds more kilometres of fibre access cable to hundreds of new street cabinets.
Engineers will also lay around 400km of subsea cables over 19 crossings to remote islands. It’s the biggest sub-sea engineering project BT has undertaken in the UK and is the first ever with so many seabed crossings.
Bill Murphy, BT Group’s Managing Director of Next Generation Broadband, said the project would deliver "massive benefits".
But he added: "There are incredible obstacles to overcome, not least building a fibre network across some of the most rugged terrain in the UK. And we have huge distances to cover as we lay our cables over the hills and glens and under the sea."
The project involves seven local authority areas.
