More than 15,000 homes and businesses across Angus are now able to connect to high-speed fibre broadband thanks to the £428m Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme – and James F Stephen Architects, which has its main office in Glamis, is one of the many to benefit.

The programme announced earlier this month that more than 95 per cent of homes and businesses across Scotland can now access fibre broadband. Combined with commercial coverage, the DSSB programme exceeded its target of 95 per cent on schedule.

More than 100 households and businesses in Glamis are now able to order fibre broadband through the Digital Scotland roll-out, which has also reached places like Carmyllie, Finavon, Hillside, Inverarity and Kellas. More local coverage will follow as engineers from Openreach, Scotland’s digital network business, continue work on the ground during 2018 using extra funds generated by strong take-up.

The work of the practice requires the sharing of large design files between offices and with clients, builders and engineers. Before they signed up with a service provider to get connected to superfast broadband, this had proved a very frustrating process.

Paul Stephen, one of the practice partners, explains: “Connectivity was a real issue for us; particularly the upload speed, which struggled to reach 1Mbps. We were using three ADSL broadband lines and had tried pairing two of these lines together in order to boost the speed, but it was still extremely slow for our needs.

“Superfast broadband immediately made a huge difference. Our download speed leapt to over 70Mbps, while the all-important upload speed increased to 15Mbps – more than 15 times the speed we had previously been working with. The improvement in upload speed was particularly important to our business.

“We can now make full use of the cloud and the latest cloud-based applications. For example, we now use Microsoft Office 365, which means all our emails are stored in the cloud, and for our architectural design projects, we are now uploading all the design information on to SharePoint. This means our clients and all other parties involved in the project can log on to SharePoint and see the latest version of the document almost immediately.”

Fibre broadband offers fast and reliable broadband connections at speeds of up to 80Mbps* and there are many suppliers in the marketplace to choose from. Whether you own a business, work from home or want to keep in touch with friends and family, fibre broadband enables multiple users to connect to the internet at high speeds and get better, faster access to online services. 

Sara Budge, Programme Director for Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband, says: “It’s fantastic news that the programme has been able to benefit James F Stephen Architects along with many other residents and businesses in and around Angus.”

Robert Thorburn, Fibre Broadband Director for Openreach in Scotland, added: “Thousands of people across Angus now have the opportunity to access their best ever broadband speeds when they sign up with a service provider, and reap the kind of benefits Paul has outlined and more.

“It’s great to hear about the immediate, positive impact their new superfast service has had on James F Stephen Architects – it really brings the technology to life. Once you’ve tried life in the internet fast lane, you’ll never look back.”

People can check the interactive map on the Digital Scotland website (scotlandsuperfast.com) to find out if they can get the service and further information is also available on Twitter @ScotSuperfast or Facebook at www.facebook.com/scotlandsuperfast

*These are the top wholesale speeds available from Openreach to all service providers; speeds offered by service providers may vary.