Moray MP Douglas Ross has highlighted inconsistencies in superfast broadband connections in Moray, having discovered that Openreach is not upgrading all the cabinets to provide Fibre Optic service to residents.
Douglas said: “I was contacted by a constituent who lives in a sheltered housing complex in Elgin, who told me that the broadband service he was able to access was poor yet houses nearby were able to get superfast broadband.
“I contacted Openreach to ask for an explanation and was told that the cabinet that serves the sheltered housing complex is not included in any Fibre Optic service roll out plans because it wasn’t commercially viable.
“It’s unacceptable that some people should be disadvantaged in this way when others, literally across the street, can enjoy the advantages that superfast broadband can offer simply because they are supplied by different cabinets.
“People who are not being upgraded by Openreach are going to have to rely on the SNP Scottish Government delivering on its promise to provide broadband speeds of at least 30 Mb a second to all homes and businesses in Scotland by the end of 2021. Unfortunately, the performance to date does not fill me with any confidence. The Scottish Government has already received more money per head of population to spend on broadband than the rest of the UK, and yet a recent report by Which? found that download speeds in Moray were the lowest in mainland Scotland.
“Moray is currently being left behind, with the Scottish Government’s focus, as usual, on the Central Belt. This must change because the people of Moray deserve the 30mbps the SNP has promised and they need to tell us how they’re going to deliver that when we have Openreach refusing to upgrade cabinets as I discovered in this case.”