Accuracy of "scotlandsuperfast.com"

Hi guys,

I'm wondering if anyone has experience with "www.scotlandsuperfast.com"? I basically would like to know on how accurate the information on there is.

We have just purchased a lovely piece of land in the Scottish countryside, currently with no fibre. I have approached Cerberus, and Openreach can do a FTTP build for £40k. It's a BIG chunk of money and as the route would only pass 4 other properties, even if everyone would jump on board (which I'm sure they won't) it would still be around £8k / property.

I was just about to register for some R100 vouchers, when I got the following message on scotlandsuperfast.com:

New gigabit-capable connections are being built in your area and your address is in the R100 contract build plan – it's part of the Scottish Government’s Reaching 100% (R100) broadband programme.

Build schedule

Your property has passed the first stage in the build process – a survey has been completed by our delivery partner Openreach. Based on the current engineering schedule we estimate that your address is in scope to receive its connection by the end of June 2025.

Watch our video to find out more about the different stages of your R100 build.

What’s coming?

All of the planned R100 contract build in the South and North of Scotland, and all remaining build in Central Scotland, will be gigabit-capable – this is more than 30 times faster than the original Scottish Government commitment to deliver 30Mbps.

As much of the technology delivered will go beyond the original superfast commitment, the engineering works will take time and scheduling may change from time-to-time due to a number of factors including engineering and planning constraints, as well as the upcoming delivery of Project Gigabit in Scotland. Use the address checker for regular updates on your planned build.

Our website also contains a variety of guidance, from common questions and guidance on how to improve your current speeds to videos explaining the R100 programme and some of the challenges associated with delivering a £600m digital infrastructure build.

Ofcom’s site shares tips on how to improve your internet connection or mobile coverage as well as checking broadband and mobile speeds and coverage for any UK address.

Now it will take us at least 12-18 months before our build is complete and we are ready to move in, so June 2025 would be more than early enough for this. My main question is how much we can trust this info?

The FTTP build would also take around 12-18 months to complete, so if we want this to be ready for when we move in, we would have to also order it now.
Forking out £40k for FTTP, for 'regular' fibre to then become available anyway would of course be a huge waste of money so I'm a bit unsure on what to do atm. :-/

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Starlink and sit tight for a year or so? This would be my strategy, I think, especially compared to forking out £40k which might prove unnecessary...!

Is it possible for you to have a look around the area and see if there is any sign of duct laying or fibre cable coils hanging from poles ? Or look at https://www.roadworksscotland.org/ to see if any roadworks are scheduled for BT. My area was listed as ready Sept 2024 and I was able to order in August after about 8 months of off and on infrastructure work. Other areas near me have had dates put back even tho infrastructure looks complete.

Edited by jphilip (Wed 02-Oct-24 18:59:44)

For my address www.superfastscotland.com tells me that a connection has been built... then offers to find out move via boostyourbroadband.com (which I think is a vanity URL for OFCOM).

When I submit my postcode there, it tells me "There are no results for this postcode" (presumably not even poor broadband is thus being seen, or the house - that's approaching 20 years old - doesn't exist...

Spoiler: I have had FTTP with GoFibre for 2½ years now.

My R100 build date got put back twice with the 3rd date being met eg end 2022, originally it was in sync with OR's website but then OR dropped all R100 postcodes so it now follows only the non R100 build. Possibly OR dropping the R100 from its site is related to other failed bidders objecting. My best updates came from the two surveyor visits and roadwork websites. As others have suggested use Starlink for filling in, also make sure your actual property and not just your postcode is on the R100 list, I would contact them to ensure you are not missed.