Scotland signs deal for blanket broadband

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The Scottish government has signed a deal to get satellite broadband in the places that ADSL cannot reach.

Avanti Communications Group has been awarded a £3.3m contract to make broadband available to the remote areas of the country that are out of the reach of terrestrial alternatives.

This follows an exercise in which the Scottish government asked anyone wanting to obtain broadband where it is not available to add their names to a register. The list includes more than 3,500 homes and businesses.

The government then tendered for a service and Avanti emerged as the winner of the contract, which will cover capital and project-management costs to establish networks. Avanti's managing director, Matthew O'Connor, told GC News that, while the company's priniciple business is as a supplier of networks, it will also act as an internet service provider and will contact the people who signed the register.

Avanti will sub-contract installation and management services to its partner RDS.

O'Connor said this could be the first deal of its kind in the UK, although regional public-sector bodies have been taking different approaches to spreading the availability of broadband.

"I think the Scottish government has been pretty inventive in how to approach this," he said.

Source: ZDNet