Scotland Will Benefit From £18m Claw-back Funding for Superfast Broadband
The Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband (DSSB) programme looks set to receive an additional £18 million of funding. DSSB is the Scottish government’s programme to extend superfast broadband to the hardest to reach rural areas in Scotland. The programme has already benefitted from £410 million and the additional funding has been made available as a result of the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) claw-back clause.
The announcement was made during a Scottish Cabinet visit to Ullapool in the Scottish Highlands, which is one of the places set to benefit from the additional funding. John Swinney, the Deputy First Minister of Scotland, stated that “Improved connectivity is a major priority for the Scottish Government, and a boost like this will allow the continued rollout of this technology to an even greater number of rural areas.”
It was recently reported that BT would have to return £129 million of public funding it had received to invest in the roll-out of superfast broadband, as it had exceeded the targets set for take-up of the services. BT received the majority of the £1.7 million of government funding that was made available to extend superfast broadband coverage to areas that previously had not been considered commercially viable. The contractual agreements with local authorities specified a claw-back clause that stated that BT would pay back some of the money when take-up of the services reached an agreed target of 20%. The targets were reached ahead of expectation, leading BT to revise its targets to 30%.
The Scottish government are working with BT to try to ensure that superfast broadband coverage extends to as many rural communities as possible. They are also seeking clarity on the areas that won’t be reached, to allow these communities to work with Community Broadband Scotland to consider alternative solutions.
Scotland has a phase one target of extending superfast broadband coverage to 85% of premises by March 2016. Coverage is currently 80.5%, with 4.5% left to go to meet the target. Scotland has already made significant progress towards reaching its targets, considering that superfast broadband coverage was at 74.1% of premises at the beginning of this year. Scotland is on track to meet the UK-wide target of 95% coverage by the end of 2017.
The DSSB programme has so far reached 365,000 premises that weren’t previously covered by commercial broadband roll-outs. Thinkbroadband estimates that the extra funding will provide fibre broadband access to between 1.5-3% additional premises.
Despite the success of DSSB so far, there are still areas of Scotland that are lagging behind the rest of the country when it comes to superfast broadband access. The MSP for Shetland, Travish Scott, has called for his constituency to be prioritised in the latest roll-out of superfast broadband across rural areas. Two thirds of Shetland is currently unable to access high-speed broadband and it is, as yet, unclear how much the isles will benefit from the additional £18 million of funding. Mr Scott said that “Any new money for superfast broadband must be targeted at those areas where the service hardly exists.”
The UK government has a manifesto pledge to extend superfast broadband coverage to 95% of premises by the end of 2017. Funding options are currently being considered to extend coverage to the final 5% of homes and businesses, which will cost an estimated £500 million. It was recently reported that there still exists a significant digital divide between urban and rural areas putting businesses, in particular, at a significant disadvantage.