Scotland Demands More Money For Broadband

A high ranking Scottish politician is to meet with the government to demand an increase to the funding set aside for superfast broadband in that country.

The showdown will take place when Alex Neil, a member of the SNP who is also Scotland’s infrastructure secretary, meets with Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt to discuss Scotland’s allocation of money for superfast broadband.

Unfair Allocation?

Scotland is angry at the decision by the government to assign £362 million to English and Scottish councils last August for a fibre rollout into non commercially viable areas.

At the time, the Scottish government complained furiously that the £68.8 million to be invested in Scotland was simply not enough money. They felt it was unfair because Wales in comparison had received £58 million to fund its broadband rollout, although it has a much smaller population and landmass.

“I am disappointed with the allocation from the UK Government towards the Scottish Government’s ambition for roll out of next generation broadband across the whole of Scotland,” said Alex Neil at the time.

And now according to comments reported by the Press Association, Neil said that he believes Scotland was “short-changed” when the £530 million broadband investment pot was allocated.

Short Changed

In a speech at the Scottish National Party conference in Glasgow, Neil said he would hold talks with Mr Hunt in an attempt to increase the country’s allocation.

“They have now conceded that we did not get our fair share and I have a meeting fairly soon in London with Mr Hunt to ensure that we get it,” he reportedly said.

The Scottish government meanwhile is pressing ahead with ambitious plans for a superfast broadband deployment north of the border, after it revealed its plan, dubbed ‘Scotland’s Digital Future – Infrastructure Action Plan’ in February.

In a nutshell it aims for a “step-change” in broadband speeds in Scotland by 2015, and “world-class digital access” to all of Scotland by 2020.

The plan is highly ambitious to say the least. The UK national average broadband speed is currently around the 6.8Mbps mark (although many people in reality receive much much lower speeds).

The Scottish government said its ambition is to deliver broadband speeds of 40-80Mbps for up to 85 percent to 90 percent of Scottish premises by 2015 using the fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) delivery model, with “an uplift in service” for the remaining 15 percent.

Fibre Funding

This is a big ask, and the ‘Infrastructure Action Plan’ will use the £68.8 million it was allocated from the BDUK fund, and will cough up £79.5 million from Scotland’s national budget, although it should be noted that up to £25.5 million of this will come from EU funding.

A further £40 million has “already been earmarked by local authorities” for the deployment – bringing the grand total to approximately £188 million. That is the public money, although it also hopes to use some of the £150 million government fund to eliminate so-called mobile phone notspots in those tough to reach Scottish locations.

“We’ve identified over £200 million of investment of public money and we are intending to use that money to leverage substantial additional private sector investment in the rural areas,” Neil said.