Superfast broadband in Scotland: reaching 100%

Digital Scotland - Reaching 100% Programme

New procurement(s) to further extend coverage of Next Generation Access ( NGA) Broadband as far as possible as part of the Scottish Government's commitment to deliver superfast broadband access to 100% of premises in Scotland.

1. Introduction And Background

The Reaching 100% Programme (" R100") is striving to extend the availability of NGA broadband infrastructure to meet the Scottish Government's commitment to deliver superfast broadband access to 100% of premises in Scotland by 2021.

To achieve this, Scottish Government intends to procure further coverage of NGA broadband infrastructure (capable of delivering download speeds of at least 30 Mbps) in areas where such broadband is currently unavailable. Geographically, R100 covers the whole of Scotland.

Scottish Government conducted an Open Market Review (" OMR") in 2012. The OMR indicated that planned commercial coverage for NGA broadband would reach approximately 66% of premises within the following three years, and would therefore leave the remaining 34% of premises without access to NGA broadband. Following open procurements (one a standalone procurement and one a call-off from the BDUK framework), two contracts for the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband Programme were awarded by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (" HIE ") and Scottish Government to BT Group plc in relation to the Highlands and Islands area of Scotland and the Rest of Scotland respectively. These contracts have a total value of approximately £400m between them.

The UK Government subsequently announced a further allocation of funding under Phase 2 of the Broadband Delivery UK ( BDUK ) Superfast Programme, with the aim of increasing NGA coverage across the UK to at least 95% by the end of 2017. Scottish Government was allocated £20.99 m from this funding round, which it committed to matching. Scottish Government has, however, decided to go far beyond this UK coverage target, and commit to extending superfast access to 100% of premises across Scotland by 2021.

As a first phase of this new programme of activity, the Scottish Government now intends to conduct a further open procurement in respect of the remaining areas without NGA broadband infrastructure (known as " white NGA"), which comprises around 282,801 premises.

BDUK received approval on 26 May 2016 from the European Commission on its new National Broadband Scheme for the United Kingdom (the ' 2016 NBS'). Scottish Government intends to conduct these further procurements under the 2016 NBS.