Broadband roll-out gives 11,000 homes & businesses across Fife superfast connection

They were among over 950,600 homes and businesses across Scotland covered by the programme since it began in 2014.

Engineers from Openreach laid more than 649km of cable across Fife during the build, connecting communities including villages like Lochgelly, Newburgh and Falkland.

Across Scotland more than 16,730km of new cable was laid – enough to stretch past Brisbane in Australia.

The build included 400km of sub-sea cable to connect Scottish islands and 5,078 new fibre street cabinets, offering broadband services at speeds up to 80Mbps1.

Superfast broadband has made web browsing, working online, gaming and streaming much quicker and smoother.

Downloading films, music and other large files and forms is also faster. And with so many of us all working from home - several people can use the connection at the same time with ease. Upload speeds are also significantly higher, so it’s great for people who need to send large files from home or work.

Robert Thorburn, partnership director for Openreach in Scotland, said: “Everyone at Openreach is thrilled to see the transformative effect of better broadband across Fife.”

Councillor Altany Craik, convenor of Fife Council’s economy, tourism. strategic planning and transportation committee, welcomed the benefits the programme has brought.

He said: “Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband is a welcome step along the road to full connectivity that will be so vital, not just in times of pandemic but for the digital landscape in which we will increasingly live.

“COVID has impacted on all of us and the past year has been incredibly difficult for all communities. I’m in no doubt that without the DSSB improvements to our rural broadband infrastructure life would have been much harder for many residents.”

Sara Budge, DSSB programme director, said: "It’s particularly pleasing to see this in rural areas and rural market towns and villages such as Anstruther, Cowdenbeath, Kinghorn, that without our programme would not have been able to reap the benefits of fibre broadband – particularly needed in the times we find ourselves.

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