Question reference: S4W-29278
- Asked by: Alex Salmond, MSP for Aberdeenshire East, Scottish National Party
- Date lodged: 13 January 2016
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Current status: Answered by John Swinney on 22 January 2016
Question
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what action it is taking to ensure that superfast broadband connectivity is available to all (a) residents and (b) businesses in Aberdeenshire East.
Answer
Our Digital Superfast Broadband (DSSB) programme, backed by £410 million of public and private sector funding, is making fibre-based broadband available to 89.4% of premises across Aberdeenshire. Commercial provision alone would only have reached 25.1% of premises. For small to medium-sized enterprises, this makes business-specific products like Ethernet and access to cloud-based systems significantly more affordable.
For communities beyond the reach of DSSB, the Scottish Government established Community Broadband Scotland (CBS) to develop community-led broadband projects. CBS is actively supporting three community organisations within Aberdeenshire through the various stages of the project planning process and is developing a proposal to connect 1,600 premises in the Cairngorms National Park, which will include areas within Aberdeenshire.
In 2015, we included some of Aberdeenshire's hardest to reach homes and businesses within the UK Government’s market testing programme. This is evaluating options to deliver superfast broadband to the final 5%. In a project in partnership with Avanti Communications, to date, around 100 homes and businesses in the region have gained access to high speed satellite broadband delivered at speeds of 10, 24 or 30 Mbps.