Connecting Scotland our broadband future: Making it Happen
INTRODUCTION
"Our aim is to make affordable and pervasive broadband connections available to citizens and businesses across Scotland"
Connecting Scotland: our broadband future, published August 2001 .
- Key issues in August 2001 were access and cost.
- Key issues now are access, cost and demand.
- Need to raise awareness and increase uptake.
Our original strategy identified two main issues relating to broadband in Scotland: local access and cost. Scottish Enterprise's project ATLAS focuses on cost along with customer choice and availability, while the Executive's strategy, launched last August, aims to promote affordable access across Scotland for the purpose of economic development and to prevent a digital divide opening up between urban and rural areas. The strategy consists of three strands - aggregation of public sector demand, consideration of direct intervention measures, and UK regulatory liaison. (A background note on the original strategy is at Annex A.)
Since the publication of the strategy (and despite the global telecoms market recession), there has been some progress on commercial coverage, particularly of ADSL-equivalent services. Nearly 50% of the Scottish population are now in areas covered by ADSL-enabled exchanges and/or cable services (see coverage map at Annex B). Sixty-seven Scottish exchanges are now ADSL-enabled, with the greatest concentration in Lothian, Strathclyde and Grampian (Aberdeen City). What is more, in the past year, satellite telecoms services have become available across Scotland. These give ADSL-equivalent capacity, but with expensive user installation costs (subsidised in some areas) and some technical limitations.
With progress on coverage, the urgency of stimulating demand and take-up has increased. Demand stimulation is already being addressed in current public sector, as well as private sector, activities. The price-cuts in ADSL earlier this year, and the introduction of demand registration websites - by BT and by local campaign groups - are to be welcomed.
If all the further 105 Scottish exchanges included on BT's "trigger-point" list were to reach such demand thresholds and be upgraded, about 70% of the Scottish population would have access to ADSL. However, the current rate of pre-registration of interest in ADSL via these exchanges gives rise to some concern that, left to the market, the timescale for such coverage may be very lengthy.
The current trial of a more cost-effective method of ADSL-enabling exchanges for a very limited number of ADSL customers in more rural areas is encouraging. Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) is collaborating with BT on the inclusion in the trial of two exchanges near Inverness. 1 Of course coverage is still an issue, especially in remoter areas, but as potential access to ADSL creeps up slowly to 50% of the Scottish population, demand, and its corollary uptake, are vital.
Since last year, research has been carried out 2 to analyse the particular problems in Scotland. Like earlier work, 3 this research has highlighted the complexity of the broadband issue. The key issues identified in the Scottish Telecoms environment were: access to basic services, lack of impartial information, choice of supplier/service, last-mile competition and technological obsolescence.
We know that a reliance on one or two existing solutions is unlikely to address these problems on a long-term basis. For example, while the current demand-led roll-out of ADSL in Scotland is to be welcomed, it is unclear whether such technology will provide a longer-term solution. We must ensure that we have a portfolio of initiatives aimed at short, medium and long-term impacts.
In making our broadband strategy happen, we aim to:
- Make business better;
- Make broadband more competitive;
- Make it value for money for the public sector;
- Make it count for Scotland; and
- Make it sustainable.