Update on BT’s subsea fibre broadband rollout to 15 Scottish Islands

Earlier this year the Scottish Government named 15 islands under their £600m Reaching 100% (R100) project which, supported by BT (Openreach) and Global Marine, would gain access to superfast broadband ISP speeds via 16 new subsea fibre optic cable links (here). Today we have a small progress update on this.

The new submarine links – part of R100’s LOT 1 (North Scotland and the Highlands) contract – are due to enter the build phase next summer 2022, but before that there’s a lot of prep to be done. The latest update we have is that Fugro, which is also the name of a related cable laying ship, has just completed the offshore fieldwork phase – this began a few months ago and will help to determine the precise subsea routes for the cables.

The work involved use of the vessel’s RAMMS (Rapid Airborne Multibeam Mapping System) solution, which saw Fugro complete airborne bathymetric data acquisition of the cable landing sites in nearshore areas considered too hazardous, even for small vessels. The resulting high-resolution lidar data and imagery will be used to create a 3D model of the area to facilitate the cable route design and support mission planning.

Meanwhile, at sea, three specialist survey vessels from Fugro’s fleet performed geophysical and geotechnical surveys of the nearshore and deepwater areas, including 31 landing sites across the remote island network. The project also comprises unidentified ordnance (UXO) hazard surveys, sub-bottom data collection, and land-based sediment sampling. The accurate integrated survey results from all these studies are expected by mid-October 2021.

Clive Downing, R100 Programme Director, said: “Digital connectivity has proven to be vital throughout the pandemic and this is something that will make a huge difference to both residents and businesses as we continue to work, learn and access public services remotely. Global Marine and Fugro have successfully mapped out the subsea routes through complex underwater and overhead surveys and this work is the first step in connecting islanders to faster broadband as part of the Scottish Government’s R100 programme for the North Lot contract area.”

Full completion of the LOT 1 contract is not anticipated until the end of 2026 (latest update), although we suspect that the subsea phase may be completed a few years earlier than that. Just to recap, the preliminary route plan from March 2021 looked like this ISPreview UK