- Over 1 million homes in Scotland now have access to full fibre connections – an increase of almost 367,000 premises in the past year.
- Good connections are available to most people in Scotland with over nine in ten homes able to access superfast broadband speeds.
- There continues to be a small number of premises in Scotland that cannot access decent broadband.
More than four in ten homes in Scotland can now access the fastest, most reliable internet connections, as the rollout of full fibre technology continues.
Ofcom’s annual Connected Nations report, which measures the availability of broadband and mobile services across the UK, found that full fibre connections are now available to around 1.1 million homes (41%) in Scotland – an increase of almost over 367,000 from last year.
Among the four UK nations, Northern Ireland has the highest availability of full fibre services (85%), compared to England (41%) and Wales (40%).
Full-fibre connections – along with upgraded cable networks – can deliver download speeds of one gigabit per second (Gbit/s) or higher. In total, gigabit-capable broadband through a range of technologies is now available to 64% of homes in Scotland (around 1.7 million), up from 51% last year.
With households in Scotland now using 482 GB of data a month on average, full fibre can better support families who need to stream, work, game, video-call and study online all at the same time.
But still only around 23% of households in Scotland are taking a full fibre service where it is available to them. Customers who are out of contract could potentially upgrade to a discounted full fibre package without paying more than they currently do.
Connecting hard-to-reach areas
The majority (94%) of homes in Scotland can now get superfast broadband, which provides download speeds of at least 30 Mbit/s; although more than a quarter (29%) who have access to it have not yet taken it up.
However, nearly 21,000 homes and businesses in Scotland do not have access to ‘decent’ broadband from either a fixed or fixed wireless network (defined by the UK Government as offering download speeds of 10 Mbit/s and upload speeds of 1 Mbit/s.) Many of these are in more rural parts of Scotland.
This figure has fallen from 30,000 last year and we expect more of these premises to be connected via publicly funded schemes over the next 12 months and beyond.
Satellite broadband can also be an alternative for people who do not have access to traditional broadband services.
Millions more people are benefitting from faster, more reliable internet as the rapid rollout of full-fibre broadband continues across Scotland. That can be particularly important at this time of year, as online shopping peaks and people stream festive favourites.
It’s also encouraging to see more people in hard-to-reach areas get access to decent broadband, as work continues to connect more rural communities.
Glenn Preston, Ofcom’s Scotland Director
5G coverage
The rollout of 5G has also increased in the last year. We estimate that 5G coverage outside of premises from at least one operator now ranges from 29-51% in Scotland. Though most 5G sites are focused around busy urban areas, such as Glasgow and Edinburgh, we are now seeing coverage extending into smaller towns and other high footfall locations.
Around one in five mobile handsets are now 5G-capable, a figure that has doubled over the past 12 months, while 5G traffic in the UK has trebled over the same period and now makes up almost 10% of all mobile traffic.
Notes
- An interactive version of the report, also published today, allows people to look up how coverage compares in their area.
- Ofcom has also published the International Broadband Scorecard, which compares broadband availability and take-up across 17 different nations.
- We estimate that 5G is available from at least one mobile network operator in the vicinity of 29-51% of premises. This range covers our measures for High Confidence of coverage and is based on the information provided to us by operators and informed by our own measurement work.