Scotland is massively disproportionately affected by digital exclusion when it comes to connectivity, with many rural communities left without usable internet access.

This is according to research from Broadband Savvy, which mapped every single residential premises stuck with slow broadband to visualise digital exclusion across the UK.

The research found that Scottish premises were more likely to suffer from poor broadband, especially in more remote and rural communities.

Compared to England, Scottish residents are four times more likely to have unusable broadband in Scotland.

In Scotland, one in 278 premises cannot get decent broadband, compared to 1 in 244 in Wales, 1 in 476 in Northern Ireland, and just 1 in 111 in England.

The Orkney Islands have the worst broadband of any UK local authority, while the Shetland Islands are second-worst, with Shetland West having the worst broadband of any UK Electoral Ward.

There are numerous census output areas – the lowest level of geographical area for census statistics – in Scotland that are almost completely cut off from broadband. For example, Broadband Savvy found that an ear in Forres, Morray with 96.2% of homes having less than 10 Mbps.

“The government’s Project Gigabit programme is failing rural communities in Scotland and Wales, and the Universal Service Obligation is not fit for purpose,” said Tom Paton, founder of Broadband Savvy.

In 2018, when launching the USO, Ofcom stated that the scheme was “intended to act as a safety net to prevent social and digital exclusion, regardless of where people live or work.” Seven years later, the programme has failed to achieve this.

“While 86% of homes can now get ultrafast gigabit internet, we estimate around 100,000 people have been left behind, with no idea when they will get usable broadband at their address,” Paton continued.

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“Under the USO, households have the legal right to request decent broadband speeds of at least 10 Mbps. But in our experience, when you make a USO claim, it’s common for BT to turn around and issue a £50,000–£100,000 quote to deploy fibre, for infrastructure you’ll still have to pay full price to rent once it’s rolled out.”

“The USO process is so difficult, and the quotes are so expensive that the programme is not doing what it’s meant to do – helping those who have been left behind during the national fibre rollout.”

“The data shows that this is not a final mile infrastructure deployment problem, where it’s difficult to deploy broadband to a handful of very remote households. We found numerous census areas of 50 premises or more that are almost completely cut off from broadband.”

“The government needs to do more to help people in areas where it’s not commercially viable to deploy full fibre broadband, rather than focusing on delivering gigabit or higher speeds in areas that already have ultrafast internet. There should be a greater focus on alternate technologies in areas where fibre deployments are difficult, such as fixed-wireless access (FWA).”