Cities throughout the UK are rushing to follow Aberdeen’s lead in giving gigabit broadband access to every household.
James McClafferty, head of regional development in Scotland for fibre network firm CityFibre, said there was huge interest around Britain in what was happening in the Granite City.
Aberdeen was recently chosen to lead the roll-out in Scotland of a fibre-to-the-premises (FtP) programme, delivering the kind of internet speeds more commonly associated with Japan and South Korea, under a partnership between CityFibre and mobile phone giant Vodafone.
Every business and house across Europe’s oil and gas capital will be connected to the extra superfast grid.
CityFibre is investing about £40million in the upgrade, with a further sum of around £2million being delivered from City Region Deal funds. Mr McClafferty said there was a lot of digging to do around the city to lay all the cables, but in most cases the work would not be too disruptive.
“We’ll have 240 people working for us in Aberdeen this time next year,” he added.
Different areas will be connected as soon as the infrastructure – linking up to a core network which is already in place – reaches them in a roll-out likely to last about three years, he added.
He said: “Aberdeen is now being looked at across Wales, Northern Ireland and England as a beacon of transformation for the whole UK.
“They can see this fantastic embracing of technology. It is an exciting plan for the city.”
CityFibre and Vodafone will soon be announcing another 12 locations around the UK to follow the lead of Aberdeen and, south of the border, Milton Keynes.
The UK has a long way to catch up with Japan and South Korea, with Britain languishing in 30th place among 31 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries for high-speed FtP connections.