Full fibre coming to 19,000¹ more  homes and businesses as plans welcomed by Scottish Government

Full fibre broadband is heading to more parts of Edinburgh and West Lothian, as part of a huge broadband upgrade by Openreach.

People living in Wester Hailes; the city’s Pentland exchange area, which serves Currie and Balerno; and Livingston Station in West Lothian are next in line for full fibre.

They join 1.2 million homes and businesses across Scotland who already have access to the UK’s most reliable broadband technology, thanks to Openreach’s work.

Across Scotland, the company has published updated plans to build full fibre broadband to 28 more locations – covering a further 120,0001 homes and businesses.

Robert Thorburn, Openreach partnership director for Scotland, said: “Our rollout of full fibre broadband is a huge infrastructure success story. As far as we know, no company is building faster or further in Europe. Our engineers are working at a rapid pace, despite the huge complexities of an engineering project on this scale, and we won’t be stopping any time soon.

“Our fibre network now passes around 290,000 properties across Edinburgh and the Lothians and today we’re pledging further investment for more local communities. Around four in 10 of those households and businesses have upgraded so far, so there’s plenty of  room for more people to switch to better broadband right now.”

Robert added: “Our fibre checker has the latest information about our work in your area. It’s also worth noting that upgrades aren’t automatic. Once full fibre is available where you live, you’ll need to place an order to get connected and we’ll do the rest.

“Our network offers the widest choice of providers such as BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone and Zen – which means people have lots of choice and can get a great deal.”

Scottish Government Employment and Investment Minister Tom Arthur said: “Digital infrastructure is a key enabler to support economic growth right across Scotland. It’s why the Scottish Government is making record investment in broadband infrastructure this year, and we will continue to work alongside Openreach and other partners to continue improving and extending our digital network to benefit communities and businesses across the country.

“As a signatory of Scotland’s Full Fibre Charter, Openreach is committed to accelerating and prioritising rollout of the technology. This welcome programme of work will bring continued significant investment in our workforce and national infrastructure, enabling more homes and businesses – including in our island and rural communities – to access a full fibre connection.”

The latest plans are part of Openreach’s £15 billion project to upgrade the UK’s broadband infrastructure – making gigabit-capable technology available to 25 million homes and businesses by the end of 2026, including 6.2 million in harder to reach, more remote and rural areas.

More than 4.7 million homes and businesses across the UK have already upgraded to Full Fibre and demand continues to flow, with more than 50,000 orders being placed each week.

Openreach has also refreshed its online map and postcode checker to give the public a clearer, regularly updated view of its plans and progress between now and 2026.

The map now shows the levels of current and future expected full fibre coverage as of today, taking data from all of its build programmes, whilst the postcode checker continues to offer the most personalised view of the connectivity available to an individual home or business.

Further updates will be provided as any additional locations are added in future.