Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie says Highlands should be 'catch-up zone' for broadband connections
The Liberal Democrats claim that they have a solution to the failure to provide superfast internet across the Highlands.
Speaking exclusively to the Caithness Courier, Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie said local solutions could bridge what he called the “glaring digital divide”.
To help fill that gap, he wants the Highlands to be designated a catch-up zone for targeted investment to deliver usable internet speeds and for community champions to be put in place to help access funding.
The Scottish Government set a deadline of May this year to reach all premises with superfast broadband connections – but a £384 million contract for the north lot of its 'R100' scheme was only signed in December.
In the wake of that, a report by uSwitch.com in December found some areas of the Highlands suffered download speeds 134 times slower than the fastest speeds in urban areas.
In Edinburgh, full fibre connectivity (the fastest internet available) is available to 43 per cent of households in the capital, but in the Highlands it is just under 11 per cent.
A total of 11 per cent of Highland premises even fall below universal service obligation (USO) – where households can request a connection of at least 10MB download speeds and receive up to £3400 towards the cost of installation. In the capital that figure is just 0.33 per cent.
Mr Rennie said: “The full fibre network in the Highlands falls quite considerably short of where it is in Edinburgh and too much of the region falls below the USO standard too.
“With the bungling of the north contract for R100, the government has generally failed to deliver due to the multitude of packages of support that have left a lot of communities confused about what they can apply for.
“Some communities are very difficult to get to, but the technologies to reach those communities have improved dramatically.
"We are not even at that stage. We are still at the stage of getting to the big towns and getting a decent enough service to them before we even consider all the other communities that are in desperate need of connectivity.
“So I think the government has been seeking ever more complex ranges of funding but in reality all they have done is to have held up the programme and not allowed the communities to get on and utilise the funding available.
“I think the Highlands also need experts on the ground who can patch together all the funding that is available and just make it happen, rather than expect every single community to be experts in their own right.”
Scotland's minister for energy, connectivity and the islands Paul Wheelhouse said the Scottish Government was working towards the 100 per cent target for broadband connections.
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He said: "Scotland has some of the most challenging locations anywhere in Europe for providing telecoms infrastructure and I have always been clear that additional measures may still be needed to provide superfast access to some of the hardest-to-reach areas.
"That is why we have been developing plans in parallel with the main infrastructure investment to ensure our 100 per cent commitment is met.
"The Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme, offering a level of funding far exceeding that of any other broadband voucher scheme currently in operation within the UK, will ensure that everyone can access and benefit from this world-leading digital capability.”