HIE investment in fibre infrastructure for the Highlands

Several communities, that are planning networks have asked us what we know of plans for the development of fibre infrastructure for the Highlands and Islands. There has been a recent HIE announcement of a £146 million contract with BT. As yet we have very few details.

• There is a coarse map that indicates where we may expect fibre

• We have heard, informally, that the pricing of bandwidth will be no higher than it is in urban areas of the UK. If so, this is generally good news for residents of the Highland and Islands.

The map shows how a mixture of old, new and undersea fibre will connect serve the area. While there is not a huge amount of new fibre, the layout is such that the network is generally robust and proof against single breaks.

Just because you have BT fibre running close you, does not mean that you will get a fast internet connection. You have to obtain it from a point of presence (POP). Now the map has some blobs on it that we assume are POPs (we do not know what else they could be), but this is not yet clear.

We are also puzzled as to why another government-sponsored publication has a map that shows existing fibre that is marked as “new” on the HIE map.

The HIE also claims that “around 84 per cent of Highlands and Islands homes and businesses will have access to fibre broadband by the end of the project.” We are not sure what this means, but it is likely that if you are more than 5km from a POP, you will probably want to develop community access to one.

http://www.sdi.co.uk/resources/brochures/ict-and-electronic-technologies/map-of-scotlands-fibre-optic-network.aspx

Peter Buneman
Michael Fourman
April 2013