Towns in Angus and Fife are among eight Scottish locations to benefit from an ultrafast full fibre broadband upgrade.
Openreach is to spend £16.2 million on the project, which will upgrade 54,000 homes and business.
The new network will reach the majority of premises in:
- Kirkcaldy
- Dysart
- North Glenrothes
- Carnoustie
- Monifieth
- Gourock
- Stirling
- Bridge of Allan
The Openreach network is used by the likes of BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone and Zen.
It plans to connect nearly a million more Scottish homes and businesses to its new gigabit-capable network.
This includes 300,000 in rural and harder to serve areas.
The build has now passed more than 530,000 properties across Scotland, including 20,000 business premises.
The work in Dysart, North Glenrothes, Carnoustie and Monifieth is in the company’s build phase from 2022 to 2024. Upgrades in Kirkcaldy may run until 2025.
What is full fibre broadband?
Full fibre broadband is up to ten times faster than the average home broadband connection.
It is around five times more reliable than the traditional copper-based network, providing more predictable, consistent speeds.
Across Scotland, 124,000 homes and businesses have a full fibre service from a providers using the Openreach network.
But another 406,000 could be benefiting and have yet to upgrade.
In Dundee a rival full fibre broadband network is being built by CityFibre.
New broadband in Angus and Fife is ‘gold standard’
Robert Thorburn, Openreach’s partnership director for Scotland, said: “Full fibre is the gold standard in gigabit broadband and more future-proof than other technologies.
“We’re reaching more communities than ever and our highly-skilled engineers, alongside our build partners, are working hard to deliver some of the fastest and most reliable broadband available anywhere in Europe.”
In 2021 Openreach engineers built around 770 metres of new broadband cables every minute.
This makes ultrafast broadband available to another home every 13 seconds.
It costs around £300 to connect up each new premises.
Business benefits
Liz Cameron, chief executive of Scottish Chambers of Commerce, highlights the business benefits.
She said: “Expanding gigabit-capable full fibre broadband to more businesses, homes and locations is exactly the type of infrastructure investment Scotland needs.
“Digital connectivity is embedded into every aspect of our lives, more so now than ever before.
“This latest milestone means more communities will be able to access faster, reliable and more consistent speeds.”
