More households and businesses in Dumfries and Galloway can now upgrade to faster fibre broadband through the £463 million Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband (DSSB) rollout.
Across Dumfries and Galloway more than 58,600 homes and business can now connect to fibre broadband thanks to the DSSB programme, which is drawing to a close.
More homes in Carrutherstown now have access to superfast broadband, while the latest premises reached in Bridge of Dee, Lochfoot and Waterbeck are connected to gigabit-capable full fibre networks build by engineers from Openreach.
Also known as Fibre-to-the-Premises or FTTP, the ultra-reliable technology provides ultrafast1 broadband directly to local homes.
Across Scotland more than 950,000 premises have now been passed by the programme – with 5,078 new fibre street cabinets now live, offering broadband services at speeds up to 80Mbps1. More than 16,730km of cable has been laid – including 400km of sub-sea cable.
More than 67 per cent of properties reached by the programme have now switched to faster fibre broadband.
Fibre technology offers fast and reliable connections at a range of speeds1 and there are many suppliers in the marketplace to choose from. Local people can check if the new fibre services are available to them at www.scotlandsuperfast.com/yourstreet.
Sara Budge, DSSB Programme Director, said: “More and more people have now signed up or are able to sign up to fibre broadband thanks to the £463 million Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme, and it is particularly pleasing to see this in rural areas and rural market towns such as Bridge of Dee and Waterbeck.
“Due to COVID-19 the way we work and live our lives has changed dramatically. The difference that having fibre broadband can make if you are working from home is remarkable. I’d urge everyone to take advantage of the faster speeds now available.
“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, but the key is for customers to contact one or more service providers to explore the options available to them, as upgrades to customers’ broadband packages are not automatic.”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 Building Digital UK (BDUK), BT Group, local authorities and the EU via the European Regional Development Fund, with Openreach leading the build on the ground.
Robert Thorburn, Partnership Director for Openreach in Scotland, said: “In a turbulent year where so much has seemed uncertain, people in places like Carrutherstown and Lochfoot will greatly welcome their new, fast, reliable connections.“Most of the latest households to benefit are taking a big leap forward with full fibre technology, which is designed to last for decades to come. We’ve made great progress as a digital nation – and that will continue as our engineers gear up for the next stage of the journey.”
