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The Digital Scotland project to roll out superfast broadband to locations throughout the country is celebrating after its latest installation brought the number of properties covered by the scheme to nearly one million.
A new deployment in the village of New Cumnock in East Ayrshire has taken the number of homes and businesses able to receive superfast broadband speeds to 940,000. This is more than 100,000 more properties than had originally been planned for under the scheme.
This has been achieved through the laying of 13,000km of new fibre cabling and the installation of around 5,000 new street cabinets.
Commenting on the latest rollout, councillor Jim Roberts, economy and infrastructure portfolio holder for East Ayrshire Council, said the fastest connectivity will be a "real boost" for both for residents and businesses in New Cumnock and the surrounding area.
"More and more of our villages have access to superfast broadband, which is vital if we're to grow our rural economy - it can make a massive difference with everyone able to get online easily at the same time," he continued.
Digital Scotland is a public/private partnership with investment from the Scottish government and Openreach, and was formed with a goal of bringing high-speed connectivity to 95 per cent of homes and businesses in the country.
Robert Thorburn, partnership director for Openreach in Scotland, added: “The Digital Scotland project and our hard-working engineers have delivered more coverage across the country at faster speeds than expected.
"Connecting up rural Scotland is universally recognised as one of the hardest fibre builds in Europe. We’re proud of our track record, reaching thousands more homes than asked of us on time and under budget."
However, the scheme's work is far from done, as it is now turning its attention to the deployment of even faster fibre-to-the-premises technology, ISPReview.co.uk reports.
This is being assisted by the injection of a further £17.8 million in investment that has been raised through a clawback clause and will enable the technology to be delivered to an extra 6,000 properties.
