The percentage of premises with access to fibre broadband in Orkney is 64.70 % – and puts Scotland well on course to meeting the 100% coverage target by 2021.
Although essentially a reserved issue to Westminster, the Scottish Government’s £428 million Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband (DSSB) scheme is on track to meet its targets by the end of this year.
DSSB is delivered through two projects – led by Highlands and Islands Enterprise in its area, which includes Orkney, and the Scottish Government in the rest of Scotland. Funding partners include the UK Government, through Broadband Delivery UK, BT, local authorities and the EU via the European Regional Development Fund.
Local MSP Maree Todd, SNP, said:
Maree Todd MSP
“Without this Scottish Government investment, Orkney would still be trailing hopelessly behind when it comes to superfast broadband, with no coverage at all.
“Before the Scottish Government stepped in to fix the UK government’s mess, no premises in Orkney had access to superfast broadband – that figure is now at 64.7% after the SNP took action.
“This is giving more people access to the superfast broadband they need, and allowing local businesses to flourish thanks to better connectivity.
Fergus Ewing , Rural Economy Secretary in the Scottish Government said:
“Last year we made faster progress than any other part of the UK and we are on-track to meet our Programme for Government commitment of 95% coverage by the end of this year.”
Matt Hancock , Minister for Digital in the UK Government said:
“We know just how important broadband is in the digital age, and we’ll continue to support Digital Scotland delivering on the ground so that by 2020 everyone in Scotland, and the rest of the UK, will have access to a fast, reliable and affordable internet connection.”
To check if you are able to receive superfast broadband go to Digital Scotland’s
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I don’t like nit-picking but can someone confirm that the % figures showing availability of fibre whether this is:- A) A fibre optic cable feed into the actual premises or is it, as (I suspect) B) A fibre optic cable is brought to a distribution cabinet in close proximity to homes/businesses and completes the last yards to the customers home by using the existing copper or aluminium (very limited amount in use) cable giving average speeds of about 30mps. Now this is faster than the ADSL it replaces but until every home/business is served by a fibre optical cable then we can never really call it ‘Super-Fast’.
these are the official figures but I assume that it is to the distribution cabinet which is the issue in rural and island areas
So over 1/3 of premisis DON’T have access. In this day and age that’s a disgrace.
Yes I agree but coming from 0% was a long way to go compared to other places
You know I think that there are so many people out there that do not know the complexities of building a network to cover the whole country nowadays. What most people don’t know that if it had not been for the intransigence of Tory Governments in the 70’s when the old British Telecom (Nationalised Industry) demonstrated to the Milton Keynes Development Corporation and the Tory Government a ‘Broadband’ customer connection carrying their telephone service, Broadcast TV, Meter Reading and much, much more carried on a coaxial cable (Optical Fibre was still the twinkle in the mind of research engineers and scientists) and guess what the Tory Government was nobbled (got at) by the then providers of Cable TV (I’ll not mention the companies) and in the end Milton Keynes was wired-up by the old British Telecom using two separate cables, one of copper or aluminium ‘pair’ cable and a coaxial cable carrying their broadcast TV received from Transmitters in the Midlands, East Anglia, London and West of England but the main thing is that the coaxial could carry much more and even more with digital transmission.
So please place blame where blame really lies, the mad drive by Thatcher to privatise everything in sight and look where we are now, over priced electricity, gas, rail travel, water (In England & Wales – and despite what Richard Leonard says Scottish Water is still in Public hands)