News / More villages set for faster broadband
HIGHLANDS and Islands Enterprise (HIE) says Bigton, North Roe and Ollaberry will be among the communities to gain access to faster broadband speeds later this year.
HIE says more than 7,500 premises in Shetland now have access to improved speeds as part of its £146 million scheme in conjunction with BT.
It aims to deliver broadband services to 84 per cent of Highlands and Islands premises, but only 76 per cent of households in Shetland are expected to get access.
The south and north mainland villages are next in line for improvements, while Bixter already has access after work was completed ahead of schedule.
A total of 17 towns and villages in Shetland already have fibre broadband services available, from Hillswick and Mossbank in the north and Lerwick and Sumburgh further south.
Forty new fibre cabinets have been built or have been ordered so far.
In June, HIE told Shetland News that around 58 per cent of households in the isles were connected to “superfast” broadband.
The term “superfast” is officially recognised as being speeds exceeding 30Mbps, but the HIE/BT scheme is only installing 24Mbps – and fibre technology is only being used as far as exchange cabinets, with residents still reliant on copper wires for the last part of the journey.
That – along with the speed of the scheme’s delivery – has seen local politicians and businesses regularly calling into question the way the roll-out is taking place.
Ian Brown of Shetland Broadband said the Digital Scotland project is still failing to grasp some key issues.
“They just keep re-announcing the same thing every few months. What they’re doing is what they’re doing – it’s not what’s needed,” he said.
“It’s the nature of the technology and the costs that are involved that are really the problem.”
The price of installing a cabinet won’t be cost-effective if only handfuls of folk will benefit, Brown added, while the distance between some households and the new hubs won’t necessarily allow for high speeds.
Speaking about the latest update, HIE’s director of digital Stuart Robertson said: “Roll-out continues across the Highlands and Islands, and it’s great that we are seeing growing numbers of rural towns and villages with better access to fibre broadband than ever before.
“When we started this project fibre services were only available to four per cent of the region’s homes and businesses. Coverage has come a long way, and the new core infrastructure we’ve rolled out gives us a much better base to build on into the future.”
To find out if services are available in your area, visit www.hie.co.uk/whereandwhen
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