This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Broadband in 98 per cent of Scotland
17/11/2003
Small businesses and consumers have been encouraged
to register their interest in receiving broadband services,
as broadband has the potential to be extended to
almost 98 per cent of Scottish households.
Enterprise Minister Jim Wallace
welcomed the announcement by British Telecom that exchange
trigger levels have been set for a further 2,300 exchanges
across the UK, including 430 in Scotland. This equates to
407,000 Scottish households.
He also underlined the Executive's
commitment to ensuring all of Scotland benefits from
broadband, including more remote areas that are not
included in BT's new exchange trigger list.
Trigger levels refer to the number
of people BT require to take up broadband in an exchange
area, before it is viable for the exchange to be
upgraded.
Mr Wallace said :
"This is excellent news. The
Executive is committed to working with commercial providers
like BT and I'm pleased they have taken the business
decision to extend the potential for broadband coverage in
Scotland. It is now more important than ever that small
businesses and consumers take up the opportunity and
register their interest in receiving broadband
services.
"The Executive remains focused on
our pledge under the Partnership Agreement to extend
broadband connectivity for every area of Scotland.
"Broadband is vital to our future
economic competitiveness but, even with the boost today, we
don't underestimate the scale of
the challenge facing us, particularly in
remoter areas.
"We will continue working to
stimulate demand for broadband
and expect to meet our short-term target of
70 per cent broadband coverage of households ahead of
schedule by early next year.
"However we want to secure 100 per
cent coverage for all Scotland, and will consider next year
whether further intervention is necessary to accelerate
coverage."
Initiatives already underway to
boost broadband demand in Scotland include a broadband
business incentive scheme that has attracted over 2,000
applications since it was introduced in the summer, and a
network of business broadband demonstration centres across
Scotland, based in the enterprise networks.