Gigabit-capable broadband for three million more premises in the toughest third of UK including 25,000 across Ayrshire
Economy secretary Kate Forbes welcomes ‘vitally important’ investment
Openreach today outlined plans to build ultrafast, ultra-reliable Full Fibre broadband to 300,000 more Scottish homes and businesses – including around 25,000 in Ayrshire – in some of the country’s hardest to serve communities. It means fewer homes and businesses will require taxpayer subsidies to upgrade.
Twenty exchange areas across Ayrshire will be upgraded, with the majority of homes and businesses in places such as Largs, Mauchline, Drongan, Joppa, Annbank and Tarbolton set to benefit from what will be a massive nationwide, a five-year feat of civil engineering. Lamlash and Brodick on Arran are also included.
A full list of the new locations is below.
Today’s announcement expands on Openreach’s existing nationwide full-fibre build plans, which already include 24 Ayrshire towns such as Cumnock, Stewarton, Ardrossan, Saltcoats, Ayr and Kilmarnock.
Across Ayrshire, around 40,000 premises can already access full-fibre broadband on the Openreach network. The company is also delivering the main build for the Scottish Government’s R100 programme.
The updated build plan follows an extended investment commitment by its parent, BT Group – which means Openreach will now build Full Fibre technology to a total of 25 million UK premises, including an additional three million in the hardest-to-serve communities.
The plans also include an extension to the company’s biggest ever recruitment drive, with a further 1,000 new roles being created in 2021 on top of the 2,500 jobs announced in December 2020 – of which 275 were in Scotland. This means that by the end of 2021, Openreach will have created and filled more than 9,000 apprenticeship roles since 2017/18.
Economy Secretary Kate Forbes said:
“This is good news for Ayrshire. The rollout of ultrafast broadband to so many more rural communities is vitally important, especially as we focus on recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Continued commercial build is an important part of the Reaching 100% Programme’s aim to provide access to superfast speeds for all premises. This focus on rural and hard-to-reach areas is exactly what I want to see and I look forward to hearing that these 25,000 addresses are connected.”
Robert Thorburn, Openreach Scotland’s strategic infrastructure director, said:
“Building a new broadband network across Scotland is a massive challenge and some parts of the country will inevitably require further public funding. But our expanded build plan means any future taxpayer subsidies can be limited to only the hardest to connect homes and businesses. And with investments from other builders, we’d hope to see that shrink further.
“The impact of Full Fibre broadband - stretching from increased economic prosperity and international competitiveness to higher employment and environmental benefits – will be a massive boost for Scotland and the rest of the UK. We’re also delighted to continue bucking the national trend by creating more Scottish jobs, with apprentices joining in their droves to start their careers.
“We’ll publish further location details and timescales on our website as detailed surveys and planning are completed and the build progresses. In the meantime, people can also check what’s already available – which includes around 400,000 homes and businesses across Scotland that can already access full-fibre on the Openreach network.”
Openreach is already building Full Fibre faster, at lower cost and higher quality than anyone else in the UK has made the technology available to more than 4.7 million homes and business so far. With download speeds of 1 Gbps, it’s up to 10 times faster than the average home broadband connection. That means faster game downloads, better quality video calls and higher resolution movie streaming.
Households can use multiple devices at once without experiencing a slowdown – so more people can get online at once. Full fibre is also less affected by peak-time congestion – so users can enjoy their Saturday night blockbuster in 4K without the dreaded buffering screen.
Openreach is using a range of innovations and techniques to deliver the build, whilst a major investment in its Scottish training centre in Livingston is helping to skill thousands of new engineers. Openreach Scotland has a workforce of around 3,200 people.
Recent research by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) highlighted the clear economic benefits of connecting the nation to full-fibre, creating a c. £2bn boosts by enabling more people to enter the workforce.
This short video explains what Full Fibre technology is and you can find out more about our Fibre First programme, latest availability and local plans here.