Scotland set for £50 million broadband boost

Another 167,000 homes and businesses across Scotland are set to get access to full fibre broadband, thanks to Openreach.

The company is announcing a further £50 million investment across 25 new locations, including Bannockburn in Stirling, Lochgelly in Fife and Clydebank in West Dunbartonshire (a full list is below).

Earlier today, Openreach announced it had reached the halfway point of its nationwide plan to reach 25 million premises with its full fibre broadband network by the end of 2026.

It also revealed 142 new locations – including the 25 in Scotland – where it will deliver full fibre to around 1.4 million more homes and businesses.

Openreach is building full fibre faster and further than any other UK provider, reaching around 60k new premises every week – equivalent to a town the size of Livingston in West Lothian. That means passing another home or business with ultrafast, gigabit-capable broadband every ten seconds.

Openreach intends to keep building after it reaches its initial 25 million target, reaching up to 30 million premises with Full Fibre by the end of 2030.

Robert Thorburn, Openreach Scotland Partnership Director, said: “This is a national infrastructure project that’s a genuine success story. We’re delivering engineering on an epic scale, on time and on budget, with another £50m investment across Scotland now going to reach 167,000 more homes.  

“From a standing start just a few years ago, we’ve made this life-changing technology available to more than a million Scottish premises and we’re adding thousands more each week, building further and faster than any other operator.

“Our build rate is still accelerating and we’re focused on reaching our next million Scottish properties faster than ever. Ultimately, our investment unlocks huge economic and social benefits by supporting the economy, education, healthcare and public services.”

Meeting the demands of modern life

Around 400,000 Scottish homes and businesses have already connected to the new network and demand continues to rise.

Roughly 1.8 million Terabytes[1] of data is used on the Openreach UK-wide network each week – equivalent to every single person in the country watching two full HD movies every day – and data consumption is rising every single year.

Powering up public services

Openreach has already made Full Fibre available to more than 760 medical facilities across Scotland – including hospitals, GP surgeries and pharmacies, as well as 420 care and nursing homes.

The build has also passed more than 1,100 Scottish educational facilities, schools and universities, and 340 children’s nurseries & creches, supporting improved online learning facilities for students.

Helping to tackle social challenges

The network transformation could also play a vital role in helping to tackle a range of social challenges – with full fibre reaching 300 banks and financial buildings across Scotland, 175 libraries, art centres and museums, as well as 110 emergency services buildings including coastguard and mountain rescue.

Growing the UK economy

Openreach’s network will also help to grow the economy by connecting people and businesses.

The Full Fibre transformation could give a £4.5bn boost to the output of the Scottish economy in 2030, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr).

For the most personalised view of an individual home or business, Openreach recommends using its online postcode checker where people can find out the specific Openreach broadband connectivity available at their address.  

ENDS

Notes to editors 

[1] A one Terabyte hard drive can hold up to 500 hours of high-definition 1080p video — that’s just over 20 whole days!

The Scottish locations included in today’s announcement are: