£160m boost for Scotland's full fibre rollout

Openreach has announced that around 400,000 more Scottish homes and businesses will benefit from full fibre broadband thanks to an increase in funding of around £160 million.

The leading broadband network provider has also revealed that it will use the additional funding to rollout full fibre to dozens more urban locations, as well as 160 new rural areas.

The additional urban areas set to benefit from the funding boost include Dunfermline, Falkirk, Paisley and Livingston, with the majority of homes and businesses in each area soon to benefit from access to the latest "ultrafast, ultra-reliable full fibre broadband".

According to Openreach, the FTTP broadband will be installed using a combination of telegraph poles and underground cables, utilising any existing broadband infrastructure to reduce the amount of disruption experienced by local residents and businesses.

The work has already begun and is expected to be completed by 2026, although Openreach has revealed that there are already 400,000 homes and businesses who are able to access full fibre broadband across Scotland thanks to the FTTP rollout.

Robert Thorburn, strategic infrastructure director for Openreach Scotland, said: "Nobody in Scotland is building full fibre faster, further or better than Openreach. We’re reaching more communities than ever and our team of highly-skilled engineers, alongside our build partners, are working hard to deliver some of the fastest and most reliable broadband available anywhere in the world."

Barry McNicholas, group managing director of Kier Utilities, who are working alongside Openreach during the rollout, added: "The need for reliable and fast broadband speeds has never been greater and we are proud to be working with Openreach to support their ambitious plans of bringing full fibre broadband to homes and businesses across the UK.

"We look forward to building new digital infrastructure in places like Dunfermline, where we will be working with our local teams and supply chain partners to carry out these works."