More households and businesses in Dollar can now upgrade to faster fibre broadband through the £463 million Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband (DSSB) rollout.

Across Scotland, thanks to the programme, around 944,000 premises are now able to connect to the new network.

More than 5,000 new fibre street cabinets are now live – offering broadband services at speeds up to 80Mbps¹ – and more than 15,000km of cable has been laid.

Engineers from Openreach will continue work on the ground in Clackmannanshire during 2020, thanks to additional investment as a result of innovation and new funding generated by stronger than expected take-up.

Across Scotland, more than 60 per cent of properties reached by the programme have now switched to faster fibre broadband.

Fibre technology offers fast and reliable connections at a range of speeds¹ and there are many suppliers in the marketplace to choose from. Local people can check if the new fibre services are available to them at www.scotlandsuperfast.com/yourstreet.

Sara Budge, DSSB Programme Director, said: "More and more people have now signed up or are able to sign up to fibre broadband thanks to the £463 million Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme, and it is particularly pleasing to see this in rural areas and rural market towns such as Dollar.

"The difference that having fibre broadband can make to businesses or to improving the range of services available in the home is amazing. I’d urge everyone to take advantage of the faster speeds now available.

“There's lots of competition out there and people may find they could be surfing at much higher speeds at a similar cost to their current service, but the key is for customers to contact one or more service providers to explore the options available to them, as upgrades to customers’ broadband packages are not automatic.”

Delivered through two projects - led by Highlands and Islands Enterprise in its area and the Scottish Government in the rest of Scotland - funding partners also include the UK Government through Building Digital UK (BDUK), BT Group, local authorities and the EU via the European Regional Development Fund, with Openreach leading the build on the ground.

Clackmannanshire Council Leader, Councillor Ellen Forson, said: “Its great news that the DSSB programme has reached more of Dollar. Whether you work from home or enjoy gaming, or simply just want to download a movie - having high-speed broadband lets this happen.”

Robert Thorburn, Partnership Director for Openreach in Scotland, said: “It’s great that the Digital Scotland project is still breaking new ground. Through our partnership, around 7,500 homes and business premises in Clackmannanshire can now connect to a fibre service.

“Our engineers remain as focused on bringing better broadband to as much of the Wee County as possible as they were on day one.

"The Digital Scotland rollout is a huge civil engineering success which has reached 100,000 more Scottish premises than planned and beat targets on time and under budget. It’s fantastic that 60 per cent of the homes and businesses we’ve passed have now upgraded, and I’d encourage anyone who hasn’t yet made the move to check if they could get a faster service.”