Carnoustie and Monifieth to benefit from major broadband boost

Another 54,000 homes and businesses are included in the latest ultrafast full fibre upgrade.

It follows plans announced last year for nearly a million more Scottish homes and businesses to be given access to Openreach’s new gigabit-capable network, including 300,000 in rural and harder to serve areas.

The build has now passed more than 530,000 properties across Scotland, including 20,000 business premises.

The company has previously announced plans to invest in full fibre for Arbroath, Forfar, Brechin, Kirriemuir, Montrose, Muirhead, Broughty Ferry and parts of Dundee. People can check their address to see what’s available and register for updates on the rollout at www.openreach.com.

Robert Thorburn, Openreach’s partnership director for Scotland, said: “Nobody in Scotland is building full fibre faster, further or at a higher quality than Openreach. Full fibre is the gold standard in gigabit broadband and more future-proof than other technologies. We’re reaching more communities than ever and our highly-skilled engineers, alongside our build partners, are working hard to deliver some of the fastest and most reliable broadband available anywhere in Europe.

“In 2021 our engineers built around 770 metres of new broadband cables every minute – making ultrafast broadband available to another home every 13 seconds.

"We’ve already reached more than half a million Scottish homes and businesses, but there’s more to do – and we’re committed to doing it.”

Scottish Government Economy Secretary Kate Forbes said: “This is great news for Scotland. Commercial build continues to play a crucial role in helping ensure homes and businesses across the country can access fast, reliable, future-proofed broadband connectivity.

"Bringing full fibre broadband to more urban and rural communities will help protect livelihoods and ensure people remain connected while we continue to recover from the effects of the global pandemic."