National Islands Plan: annual report 2021

Digital Connectivity

Strategic Objective 6 – To improve digital connectivity

We committed to deliver a step change in the quality of digital connectivity across the islands.

Work is ongoing in relation to this commitment.

As outlined in last year's report, BT were required to update their implementation plan for the £384 million R100 North contract to take account of changes in commercial build plans. These revised plans were finalised in summer 2020 with the online address checker updated to reflect the new build plan.

A further £8 million of funding was secured from UK Government which was used to 'flip' around 3,600 premises due to receive a fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) connection to fibre to the premises (FTTP). This means that all of the R100 North contract build will now be FTTP, capable of delivering gigabit capable speeds – over 30 times faster than the superfast commitment.

Survey work for delivery of 16 new subsea cables has completed with build expected to take place during 2022 (weather dependent).

We committed to mandate the delivery of gigabit-capable connectivity to selected island locations, through the R100 programme, with many other island communities to benefit once contracts are finalised.

Work is ongoing in relation to this commitment.

Through the R100 North contract, delivery of gigabit capable infrastructure was mandated in South Mull, Uig/Timsgarry, Sanday, Stronsay, Yell and Unst. However, many more islands are also benefiting from build through the R100 contracts.

We committed to call on the UK Government to prioritise early investment in Scotland's islands as part of their plans for full fibre roll-out by 2025.

Work is ongoing in relation to this commitment.

The UK Government has indicated that £1.2 billion will be made available across the UK to deliver 85% gigabit capable connectivity by 2025 through 'Project Gigabit'. We continue to work closely with the UK Government to ensure that Scotland receives its fair share of Project Gigabit funding and to ensure early investment in Scotland's islands.

We committed to call on Ofcom to address the issues faced by island communities when designing telecoms regulation and policy. We also committed to convene a meeting with Ofcom and island representatives to explore how regulatory levers (such as spectrum auctions) could improve both mobile and broadband coverage on the islands and ensure that the needs of islands are represented to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in UK national policy development.

Work is ongoing in relation to this commitment.

The Scottish Government works closely with representatives of OFCOM to ensure that Scotland's interests are represented and any issues raised. Scottish Government responds to OFCOM consultations and recently provided a response to the DCMS consultation on connectivity for 'Very Hard to Reach Premises' as part of their planning for Project Gigabit. We anticipate that Scotland will have a disproportionately high number of premises considered 'Very Hard to Reach' for the purposes of Project Gigabit and await with interest the publication of UK Government's findings.

Through the Scotland 5G Centre, building on the 5G RuralFirst trials currently taking place on Orkney, and working with partners including Ofcom, we committed to develop rural 5G use cases to address the rural digital divide using 5G technology.

Work is ongoing in relation to this commitment.

Led by the University of Strathclyde, the Rural Testbed project is delivering a 5G testbed in two locations (Orkney and Loch Lomond), which is backed with £1.9 million funding from the Scotland 5G Centre.

In the first quarter of 2021, fibre backhaul was deployed at Westray to support the delivery of a pan-island testbed 5G network and key use cases of 5G fixed wireless access, IoT (internet of things) and energy, and mobile/roaming access.

We committed to work with local resilience partnerships and telecoms providers to encourage them to focus on resilience of data links to and from the islands.

Work has yet to be progressed in relation to this commitment.

The Scottish Government Islands Team will be engaging with relevant resilience partnerships in 2022 to understand challenges to resilience of data links to and from the islands, and ensure these are considered.

We committed to develop a digital skills programme designed by island communities to meet their needs.

Work has yet to be progressed in relation to this commitment.

We committed to extend the availability of coding clubs and community-based digital inclusion programmes across the islands.

Work is ongoing in relation to this commitment.

Engagement was undertaken in 2021 to understand models for delivering coding clubs and digital inclusion programmes in island communities, including examples such as Silicon Croft in Shetland. Work will be undertaken in 2022 to explore how learning from such models could be implemented across the islands.