Fibre connectivity to the island of Lismore: FOI release

Information requested

I noted with interest an article about providing fibre connectivity to the island of Lismore ( https://www.scotlandsuperfast.com/news/news-and-case-studies/all/deploying-broadband-on-scottishislands/ ) and am requesting the following information under FOI legislation:

1. What was the cost of the subsea cable to connect the island of Lismore?
2. What is the (budgeted or actual) cost to provide backbone and local access fibre to all the premises on Lismore (assuming all premises will be connected)?
3. How many non-fibre connections (if any) would be deployed if all premises were connected?
4. What is the total budgeted cost for all connectivity types and enhancements under R100 for Lismore?

Response

1. What was the cost of the subsea cable to connect the island of Lismore?

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. This is because the Scottish Government does not hold information regarding the cost of delivering individual subsea cables. These costs are aggregated and it is not possible to break that figure down for the subsea cable to Lismore only.

2. What is the (budgeted or actual) cost to provide backbone and local access fibre to all the premises on Lismore (assuming all premises will be connected)?

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. This is because the Scottish Government does not hold information regarding the cost of delivering connectivity to individual communities. These costs are aggregated and it is not possible to break that figure down for Lismore only.

3. How many non-fibre connections (if any) would be deployed if all premises were connected?

All premises to be connected through the R100 North contract, which covers Lismore, will be Fibre to the Premises (FTTP). There are some premises on Lismore that are eligible for the R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme (R100 SBVS). Those premises may be connected by any of the eligible technology types capable of delivering a superfast connection, i.e., fibre, fixed wireless, fixed mobile or satellite.

4. What is the total budgeted cost for all connectivity types and enhancements under R100 for Lismore?

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. As noted in response to questions one and two, as the costs that we hold are aggregated it is not possible to provide a total cost for deployment on Lismore only.

REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION

The Scottish Government does not have the information

The Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. This is because the Scottish Government does not hold information regarding costs to the requested level of granularity. While the Scottish Government holds information regarding the total cost for all subsea cable deployment, this information is not broken down for each specific cable. Likewise, while we hold information regarding the costs associated with the deployment of infrastructure in certain contractual phases, these do not directly align with delivery in individual communities. As such it is not possible to provide a total cost for deployment in Lismore.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.