Scotland highlighted to receive a rural broadband boost

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The UK government has mentioned areas in Scotland will receive special attention as part of a £200 million investment into boosting rural broadband. .

Communications Minister Stephen Timms, who replaced Lord Carter earlier in the year has set the government a deadline of 2017 to provide next-generation broadband across the country. And, although he hasn't detailed exactly how much money individual areas will receive Scotland got a special mention in his outline for expenditure: “Digital Britain's aim is to make the UK one of the most competitive hightly skilled and technologically advanced economies in the world,” said Timms. “The government will spend some £200m on improving the broadband neworks of areas that have little or no service, including remote parts of Scotland.”

Oddly though, despite the Communications Minister highlighting Scotland as a deserving area for next-gen broadband upgrades, it was only last week telecoms researchers Point Topic published results revealing Scots weren't exactly struggling when it came to rural broadband connections. In fact Point Topic found Scotland offered more telephone exchanges per head of population than the rest of the UK. In this report credit was given to the Scottish Government for spending millions ensuring broadband was available “from all the country's exchanges”.

Stephen Timms is expected to reveal more detailed plans on the government's rural broadband project expenditure on Friday.


Source:broadbandgenie