Scotland pledges £5m to kickstart rural broadband

 

Gallery

By Stewart Mitchell

Posted on 23 Nov 2011 at 08:39

The Scottish Government has unveiled plans to push next-generation broadband into all corners of the country with an initial £5 million planned for rural projects.

Whereas the overall UK broadband target aims to get “superfast” speeds to 90% of the UK, Scotland said it planned to get fibre or connections with equivalent speeds to all homes.

"We have set out our ambition for all of Scotland to have access to next generation broadband by 2020, with significant progress to be made by 2015,” said Infrastructure and Capital Investment Secretary Alex Neil. "Meeting the challenge of delivering this service to rural areas in particular is a key priority of our Digital Strategy.”

Officials said the initial allocation to the South of Scotland Alliance (SOSA) was part of the Scottish Government's £144.3 million funding pot intended to cover all of Scotland.

"This funding allocation is an acknowledgement of the particular issues facing the remote and rural parts of the Scottish economy and of the collaborative efforts being made by colleagues in the South of Scotland to progress an improved digital infrastructure,” Neil said.