More premises across Dumfries and Galloway can now upgrade to faster fibre broadband through the £442 million Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband (DSSB) rollout.
Thanks to the programme, more than 930,000 premises are able to connect to the new network, which has now arrived in Dalbeattie.
Other areas where more fibre broadband is now available include Kirkgunzeon, Haugh of Urr, Ringford, Dumfries, Collin, Lochmaben and Kirtlebridge.
To help promote the fact that fibre-based broadband is widely available across Dumfries and Galloway, the DSSB team were out in Dalbeattie last week.
Local people can check if the new fibre services are available to them at www.scotlandsuperfast.com/yourstreet.
Across the country nearly 5,000 new fibre street cabinets are now live and more than 12,000km of cable has been laid by engineers from Openreach, Scotland’s digital network business. Fibre broadband offers fast and reliable broadband connections at speeds of up to 80Mbps1 and there are many suppliers in the marketplace to choose from.
Research has suggested that every public pound invested in fibre broadband in Scotland is delivering almost £12 of benefits to the Scottish economy. The independent report commissioned by DSSB and undertaken by consultants Analysys Mason estimates the total benefit from investment as £2.76 billion over 15 years.
Delivered through two projects – led by Highlands and Islands Enterprise in its area and the Scottish Government in the rest of Scotland – funding partners also include the UK Government through Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK), BT Group, local authorities and the EU via the European Regional Development Fund.
Thanks to additional investment as a result of innovation and new funding generated by stronger than expected take-up, engineers will continue to deliver new DSSB deployment in every local authority area during 2019 and into 2020, complementing ongoing commercial build across Scotland. More than 50 per cent of properties reached by the programme have switched to fibre broadband.
Sara Budge, Director of the DSSB programme, said: “Residents need to sign up for a fibre service with their chosen provider as upgrades aren’t automatic and I would urge them to check the interactive map on the Digital Scotland website www.scotlandsuperfast.com to find out if they can get the service.”
“The difference having fibre broadband can make is amazing. Many local people are already taking advantage of the faster speeds now available and we’d urge others to consider the benefits of a move to a fibre service.
“There’s lots of competition out there and people may find they could be surfing at much higher speeds at a similar cost to their current service.”
Robert Thorburn, Partnership Director for Openreach in Scotland, said: “It’s great to see better broadband reaching more local homes and businesses.
“From children doing their homework to caring for our elderly and from home entertainment to e-commerce – fast broadband powers it all.
“With around half of homes signing up for services, there’s still room for many more people to benefit – so why not check if you can upgrade now.”
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