The Scottish Government has missed its own deadline to roll out superfast broadband across Scotland. Jack McKeown finds out why.
Scotland’s strategy for delivering world-class broadband across the country was launched in a blaze of hype last year. Then minister for infrastructure and capital investment now Health Secretary Alex Neil said at the time: “This plan is about the whole of Scotland both in terms of geography and people and it is clear that all of Scottish society will benefit from world-class digital access … together we should seek to achieve our goals as a nation while ensuring that everyone receives a fair and equitable return on their investment.”
“Achieving our goals”, as a nation or otherwise, seems to have slipped behind schedule, however. In its plan, the Scottish Government laid out a timetable to achieve “step change” by 2015 and “world class” infrastructure by 2020.
The former is outlined as speeds of between 4080 megabytes per second (mbps) for at least 85%-90% of premises in Scotland, plus “best possible speeds” for the rest of the country.
A key plank of delivering this was appointing a company to begin improving the country’s outdated digital infrastructure.
Under its summary of “key actions we will take”, the Scottish Government said it would award a contract in the first half of 2013.
We are now into the second half of the year so The Courier asked the Scottish Government which company had won the contract.
After numerous phone calls to chase an answer, the Government eventually delivered a one-line response: “An announcement on the award of the Scottish Government’s Step Change: Rest of Scotland contract will be made imminently.”
Despite further pestering from The Courier, no more accurate timescale could be elicited, nor any further details on when work would begin.
The Scottish Government has been given £100.8m from a £530m superfast rural broadband fund the UK Government announced in 2010. It is designed to bring faster broadband to those living in the countryside and other remote areas.
The Scottish Government rolled that money in with the £240 million it has invested in its Step Change Programme outlined above.
The UK Government had previously announced a £150 million “super connected cities” fund which would also benefit Scotland, but that scheme collapsed following a legal challenge from BT and Virgin Media, which claimed it amounted to illegal state aid for competitors.
Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth John Swinney said: “Whilst broadband investment, on top of the £240 million the Scottish Government already invests, would be welcome, we await the details, particularly after the collapse of the super connected cities plan previously announced by the UK Government for Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Perth.”
Despite failing to meet its own target, SNP politicians this week continued to boast about the better broadband independence would bring,
Writing in her newspaper column, nationalist MSP for South Scotland Joan McAlpine said an independent Scotland would have a digital infrastructure matching the best countries in the world.
She wrote: “If Ofcom answered to our Scottish Parliament, or if we were independent with our own communications regulators, we could design a system suited to Scotland’s needs.
“We could reach the standard of other small countries like the Netherlands and Switzerland, which are among the best connected in the world.”
Chief executive of the Perthshire Chamber of Commerce Vicki Unite said it was essential that the roll out of faster broadband happens as soon as possible.
“Access to high speed broadband is crucial to the future of our regional economy, particularly in rural areas,” she said.
“It is as vital a piece of infrastructure as our roads and transport networks, not just in the city of Perth itself, but in the wider rural parts of the region where many of our small businesses are home-based.
“We want thriving and competitive local businesses and fast broadband can be the catalyst to make that happen.
“We run our Better Broadband campaign because we know we cannot afford to stand still. As the voice of businesses in Perthshire, we will continue to work with Perth and Kinross Council and the Scottish Government to maximise the investment in superfast broadband locally and achieve our ambition of having one of the fastest and best connected communications networks in Europe.”
Stephen Leckie is the chief executive of Crieff Hydro and has been a prominent campaigner for faster broadband and better mobile phone reception for more than three years now.
Crieff Hydro spends around £50,000 a year on a superfast one gigabyte connection.
“That is a painful amount of money to spend but we have around 200 PCs in the company and 600 staff,” he said. “We do reservations, procurement, organising everything is online.
“Our system used to grind to a halt around two o’clock each afternoon because everyone was online doing procurement. Now it doesn’t.
“We have regular corporate functions where companies do online presentations to 300 or 400 of their employees.
“Being able to get a good online connection is essential.”
Despite the setback in announcing a contractor, Mr Leckie remains confident in the Scottish Government’s ability to deliver.
“Whenever I speak to John Swinney I tell him we need faster, better broadband, greater coverage, and more 3G and 4G phone coverage,” he continued.
“He is a good guy and I’m convinced he will deliver. Initially the Scottish Government had their target as 2020 but that’s too late, we’ll be dead by then, so now they’re aiming for big change by 2015.
“The majority of businesses in Scotland by number are based at home. Bed and breakfasts, other small businesses. They need faster broadband to survive.
“Phone reception is the other thing they need to sort out. Driving from Crieff to Inverness or Oban, for example, you are out of signal around half the time.
“I drove from Glasgow to Crieff yesterday and I was on the phone the whole time. My car is an extension of my office and losing phone signal all the time is absolute piddle.”