Editorial pieces from WIRES plus pointers to consultations, council decisions, and programme changes.
The Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme, worth up to £5,000 towards a faster connection, closes to new applications on 20 November 2026. In Aberdeenshire alone, 2,089 premises are still eligible and have not used it.
Read article →WIRES has sent its submission to the Competition and Markets Authority's inquiry into BT's purchase of TalkTalk, asking that any approval protects prices, guarantees access to a social tariff and recognises the greater effect in rural Scotland. The full text is here. Comments closed on 9 October; the CMA reports by 19 October.
We read the published digital strategies of Scotland's 32 councils. Of the 24 we could verify, only Glasgow has a standalone strategy on digital exclusion. In 22, it is a theme inside a plan about the council's own services. Eight we couldn't confirm.
BT has acquired TalkTalk's broadband and wholesale businesses out of administration, keeping 2.5 million customers connected. It also leaves one company owning BT, EE, Plusnet, TalkTalk and Openreach. Comments to the competition regulator closed on 9 October; it reports to the Culture Secretary by 19 October.
Answering written questions from Carol Mochan MSP, the Scottish Government says it is developing a Digital Inclusion Delivery Plan, to be published later this year — the plan Audit Scotland called for in August 2024. It will set out actions and how progress will be measured. It doesn't yet say who will be accountable.
In March 2026, Ofcom published its five-year Telecoms Access Review, setting fibre and repair rules through 2031. Consumer Scotland had asked for 83% of full-fibre faults in the hardest-to-reach areas to be fixed within one working day. Ofcom set the standard at 81%, the level Openreach was already achieving.
GoFibre has started construction in six more Aberdeenshire communities — St Fergus, Inchmarlo, Kincardine O'Neil, Collieston, Newburgh, and Kingswells — bringing full fibre broadband to around 1,000 homes and businesses that have never had it before, part of its £105m Project Gigabit contract for North East Scotland.
In November 2025, the Scottish Government and COSLA published a refreshed Digital Strategy for Scotland — the strategy update Audit Scotland called for over a year earlier. It sets a vision, not a delivery plan: no measurable outcomes, no named accountable lead, and no separate action plan has followed it since.
The UK-wide Shared Rural Network has switched on its 150th mobile mast and reached 95% 4G coverage of the UK landmass a year early. More than 50 of those masts are in Scotland, with up to 44 more publicly funded masts now building — the first already live in the Western Isles.
Vodafone withdrew its £12/month Essentials tariff, raising its entry price to £20. Virgin Media's Essential Broadband at £12.50 is now the lowest verified social tariff on the market — a reminder that these deals and their prices shift, so it's worth checking before you apply.
The government-backed Shared Rural Network has switched on its 140th mobile mast, with 49 now live in Scotland — including a second site on Islay that restores signal from all four networks to an area that previously had none.
The government-backed Shared Rural Network switched on its 50th mobile mast in Scotland on the remote Ardnamurchan peninsula, extending all-four-operator 4G coverage across more than 1,900 square kilometres of rural Scotland — an area larger than Edinburgh and Glasgow combined.
The House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee is taking public evidence on broadband and mobile coverage in rural and island Scotland. Submissions are a direct way to get lived experience in front of policymakers.
In 2021, the Scottish Government pledged £200m to get 300,000 households online by 2026. That deadline has now passed. The money was never spent. There is still no strategy, no plan, and no named person responsible.
Scotland's £697m Reaching 100% programme has now connected more than 100,000 premises, though some north-of-Scotland contract areas are reportedly at risk of running past their original dates.
Independent auditors say the Scottish Government and COSLA have yet to set out a coherent action plan or clear ownership for tackling digital exclusion, despite it affecting more than a million people in Scotland.
Highland Community Broadband, a volunteer-founded wireless network serving remote Wester Ross since 2017, closed as an organisation at the end of April 2026 after larger-scale voucher schemes proved unworkable for a small operator. Its network was sold to Scotnet, which still runs it.
After nine years connecting Ullapool, volunteer-run Highland Community Broadband closed in April 2026 and sold its network to Scotnet, which still runs it. Residents kept their connection. The community model did not survive rising costs, and that is the lesson for policy.
From Catalonia to New York City, volunteer and cooperative models demonstrate that connectivity can be built and governed differently.
Take-up of discounted broadband for people on benefits remains below 1 in 10 eligible households, Ofcom's 2026 pricing report found — even as more providers than ever offer one.
Ofcom's latest figures show 532,000 UK households using a social tariff. There are now 30+ options. And 70% of eligible people have never heard of any of them. That is not a communications problem. That is a policy failure.
Policy documents matter—but they need to be tested against what people experience in homes, tenements, and rural communities.
Access to affordable, reliable internet underpins work, learning, health information, and participation in public life.
The Scottish Government's R100 programme has now delivered faster broadband to over 100,000 homes and businesses. Progress worth noting — and an estimated 9% of Scottish households still without any internet connection worth noting more.
Scotland's own audit body examined delivery of the "No-One Left Behind" commitment and found one in six adults still digitally excluded, momentum stalled since the pandemic, and no published plan for what happens next. WIRES examines what that means.
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