In a significant development for Scotland’s digital landscape, Openreach announced a new £50 million investment to bring full fibre broadband to an additional 167,000 homes across the country.

“We’re delivering engineering on an epic scale, on time and on budget, with another £50m investment across Scotland now going to reach 167,000 more homes,” said Robert Thorburn, Openreach Scotland partnership director.

The expansion will include 142 new locations, 25 of which are in Scotland, such as Bannockburn in Stirling, Lochgelly in Fife, and Clydebank in West Dunbartonshire. This move is set to deliver full fibre to around 1.4 million additional homes and businesses.

This comes on the back of Openreach touting 12.5 million full fibre broadband builds in the UK, halfway done with its goal of reaching 25 million premises by the end of 2026. 

The programme has already added 400,000 Scottish homes and businesses to the new network. This is in line with the needs of UK citizens, since faster broadband plays a crucial role in meeting the demands of modern life, with roughly 1.8 million terabytes of data used on the Openreach UK-wide network each week, according to Openreach. 

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Fibre optic cables are more resilient to weather damage, and carry more information faster, and in greater quantities than traditional copper wires. This results in a faster and more reliable connection, which the latest CEBR report says could contribute as much as £72 billion to the UK economy. 

In Scotland alone, it is estimated that a network transformation could lead to a £4.5 billion boost to the output of the economy in 2030.

“Our build rate is still accelerating and we’re focused on reaching our next million Scottish properties faster than ever. Ultimately, our investment unlocks huge economic and social benefits by supporting the economy, education, healthcare and public services,” commented Thorburn.