Fibre boost for Crosshill thanks to Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband

More than 500 homes and businesses in Crosshill, Fife are now able to connect to high-speed fibre broadband thanks to the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme.

The Digital Scotland team unveiled the new fibre street cabinet that will serve part of the village this week with Paul Melvin, the Facilities Manager at BRAG Enterprise, which has recently switched to the faster speeds available.

The premises are among more than 715,000 homes and businesses across Scotland which are now able to access fibre broadband through the £428 million Digital Scotland rollout.

To access the latest fibre broadband technology, local people need to sign up with an internet service provider, as upgrades are not automatic.

Other local areas to benefit from the Digital Scotland rollout, led by the Scottish Government, include Lochgelly, Ballingry, Cardenden and Kelty.

More local coverage will follow as engineers from Openreach, the local network business which is part of BT Group, continue work on the ground.

Paul Melvin said: “It was a pleasure to join the Digital Scotland team to announce fibre broadband in Crosshill. It's good to see this project reaching more communities and giving an increasing number of homes and businesses like ours the chance to connect to high-speed broadband.

“The upgrade to fibre broadband has improved our business-as-usual immensely. As we work in business support, retraining, employability and workspace provision, we need to be able to have a strong connection in order to be able to communicate effectively with those seeking advice and support from us.”

Fibre broadband offers fast and reliable broadband connections at speeds of up to 80Mbps* and there are many suppliers in the marketplace to choose from. Whether you own a business, work from home or want to keep in touch with friends and family, fibre broadband enables multiple users to connect to the internet at high speeds and get better, faster access to online services.

Sara Budge, Programme Director for Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband, said: “It’s fantastic news that the programme has been able to launch fibre broadband to benefit residents and businesses in and around Crosshill.

“I would like to thank Paul Melvin from BRAG Enterprises for joining us this week to unveil the fibre street cabinet and I am glad to see that it has been able to benefit the local community.”

BT is investing £126 million in the Digital Scotland rollout. Robert Thorburn, BT Scotland’s Fibre Broadband Director, concluded: “Hundreds of Crosshill residents can now connect to their best ever broadband speeds when they sign up with a service provider, and we’d encourage local people to check out their options.

“It’s a highly competitive market, so people could potentially be surfing at much higher speeds at a similar cost to their current service. Once you’ve made the switch to super-fast, like the team at BRAG Enterprise, we’re confident you’ll never look back.”

People can check the interactive map on the Digital Scotland website (http://www.scotlandsuperfast.com/where-when/) to find out if they can get the service and further information is also available on Twitter @ScotSuperfast or Facebook at www.facebook.com/scotlandsuperfast

ENDS

*These are the top wholesale speeds available from Openreach to all service providers; speeds offered by service providers may vary.

Notes to editors:

Due to the current network topography and the economics of deployment, it is likely that not all premises within selected exchange areas will be able to access fibre-based broadband at the same point in the roll-out.

The Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme aims to provide fibre broadband infrastructure to parts of Scotland not included in commercial providers’ investment plans. Combined with current commercial roll-out plans, the programme will deliver access to fibre broadband to around 95% of premises by the end of the current contract.

Funding partners include the Scottish Government, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, BT, the UK Government through Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK), local authorities and the European Regional Development Fund.