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Fibre reaches inaccessible parts of London and Scotland


Digital Scotland has announced the completion of a sub-sea telecoms project


which brings fibre broadband closer for many of Scotland’s most remote communities. The £410m Digital Scotland Superfast


Broadband project required the installation of 250 miles of fibre optic cabling across 20 seabed crossings in one of the most complex sub-sea engineering challenges ever undertaken by BT in UK waters. The project covers 40 island and mainland locations, stretching from Orkney to Kintyre, which form essential links for a massive fibre network being built to bring high-speed fibre broadband to 84 per cent of the Highlands and Islands by the end of 2016. At the other end of the UK, BT is to trial fibre to


the basement (FTTB) in two City of London buildings from February 2015. Although more than 90 per cent of London’s homes and businesses can access lower-priced fibre broadband, a small minority of inner city buildings are served by ‘exchange-only’ lines and present a much bigger challenge to serve with this technology. There is often no physical space to install


street cabinets, which house faster fibre broadband kit. There is also cost and complexity involved in connecting a power supply, closing and digging up roads, and securing way-leaves for access to private land – all of which can prove prohibitively time consuming and expensive. As a result of the trial, 225 homes in the Middlesex Street Estate and around 50 SMEs based at 65 London Wall will have access to download speeds of up to 80Mb/s from more than 130 different service providers for the first time. BT hopes this latest trial could offer a solution


to many of these issues. By integrating fibre broadband kit into a building basement or


4 FIBRE SYSTEMS Issue 6 • Winter 2015


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Fibre broadband is coming closer for many of Scotland’s most remote communities


comms room, the need for street furniture, public civil engineering works and road closures will be drastically reduced – and so will the time it takes for an installation to be carried out. The Digital Scotland rollout


There is often no physical space to install street cabinets, which house faster fibre broadband kit


consists of two projects – one covering the Highlands and Islands area and the other covering the rest of Scotland, with more than 750,000 premises to benefit across the country. Brendan Dick, BT Scotland


director said: ‘This has been the most complex sub-sea project BT has tackled in UK waters, as well as


being the largest number of seabed cables laid in a single weather window. This underwater spider’s web of fibre optic cables is set to deliver a shift in communications for Scotland’s island communities, bringing them in closer touch with the rest of the world than ever before.’


The £26.9m sub-sea project is part of the


£146m Digital Highlands and Islands rollout which will make faster, more reliable services available to more than 150,000 premises across the region’s mainly rural communities for the first time. BT expects to deploy widespread fibre to the


cabinet, which offers broadband speeds of up to 80Mb/s and some fibre to the premises. The first island communities to connect directly as a result of the new sub-sea links will go live in Spring 2015. Local people will have access to fibre broadband speeds of up to 80Mbps, around ten times faster than the current top speeds available on most Scottish islands, many of which are currently connected by radio links. The Highlands and Islands project is laying


more than 500 miles of new land fibre backbone to complement BT’s existing fibre network, as well as hundreds more to create the local access which brings services to homes and businesses.


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