Aberdeen has been named as one of six centres in the UK to trial new ‘full-fibre’ network technology. Businesses, schools and hospitals will be the first to test out the new tech, which could offer superfast surfing speeds of up to 1 Gb/s. The trials form part of a £200 million venture from Openreach and the UK Government to increase the adoption of ‘fibre to the premises’ broadband, which is currently only available to around 2% of buildings in the UK. West Sussex, Coventry, Warwickshire, Bristol, West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester were named as the other candidates up for the initial piloting scheme.

‘Fibre to the cabinet’ has been the favoured technology of Openreach, where fibre optic cables are run to a street box, and then copper cables complete the connection to the desired premises. However, copper cables offer slower connection speeds than fibre optic, and are more susceptible to wear and tear. FTTP tech instead runs fibre cables right into the building, offering a speedier and more stable connection.

Each of the chosen centres could be given £10 million to fund the development, and it is hoped that the new tech could offer a number of significant improvements to local infrastructures. In a statement, the Government said FTTP broadband could allow, for example, the sharing of HD scans between hospitals, businesses to increase customer outreach, and school classrooms to stream educational videos.

Andrew Jones, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, said in a statement: “How we live and work today is directly affected by how good our broadband connection is. Reliable connections enable new industries to flourish, help create jobs and give people flexibility in how and where they work. For our economy to thrive, it is vital we make smart investments to ensure our digital infrastructure is world class and fit for the future.”

Matt Hancock, Minister of State for Digital, said: “We want to see more commercial investment in the gold standard connectivity that full fibre provides, and these innovative pilots will help create the right environment for this to happen. To keep Britain as the digital world leader that it is, we need to have the right infrastructure in place to allow us to keep up with the rapid advances in technology now and in the future.”

Aberdeen was the only Scottish centre named for the initial piloting scheme, despite Scotland’s disproportionate ranking as one of the UK’s worst-performers for broadband speeds.