More than 39,000 homes and businesses in Scotland will be able to get faster broadband by the summer thanks to a £410 million Digital Scotland Partnership.
People in 37 places around the country including parts of Fife, Angus, Perth and Kinross, Stirling and Dundee will be able to access fibre broadband services offering speeds of up to 80 megabytes per second.
Some of the places announced today such as Bridge of Allan will receive high speed technology for the first time, while others will see additional premises connected as a result of building upon their existing or planned fibre broadband.
Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: “The scale of the challenge of delivering fibre broadband into rural Scotland is greater than any other part of the UK and, indeed, much of Europe.
“It’s fantastic news that many rural communities and businesses, from the Highlands to the Borders, will soon begin to see the benefits of high-quality digital connectivity, making them more economically viable in the long term.
“However, this is not the limit of Scotland’s ambition.
“The Scottish Government’s aim is to deliver world-class connectivity by 2020, enabling people across Scotland to connect any time, any place, anywhere using any device.”
The Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband initiative consists of two projects one covering the Highlands and Islands area and the other covering the rest of Scotland.
In total, more than three-quarters of a million homes and business premises are expected to benefit from the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband initiative.
Funding partners include the Scottish Government, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, local authorities and the European Regional Development Fund.
BT, the selected private sector partner that is rolling out the open access fibre network, is investing £126 million.
The partnership programme is in addition to BT’s £2.5 billion UK commercial rollout, which will bring faster fibre broadband within the reach of more than 1.4 million Scottish homes and businesses by the end of spring 2014, with nearly 900,000 premises already passed.
Brendan Dick, director of BT Scotland, said: “Today is a major step forward in a journey that will transform the communications landscape of rural Scotland and help develop prosperous local economies.”
Culture Minister Ed Vaizey added: “The UK already does more business online than any other European country and widespread access to superfast speeds will provide a boost to the Scottish economy.”