Ullapool's community broadband network closes as national schemes fail small providers
Highland Community Broadband, a volunteer-founded wireless network serving remote Wester Ross since 2017, shut down at the end of April 2026 after larger-scale voucher schemes proved unworkable for a small operator.
Highland Community Broadband began in 2017 to bring a working internet connection to part of Wester Ross that commercial providers were not going to reach. It closed on 30 April 2026, citing rising backhaul, legal, and maintenance costs it could no longer sustain.
The detail that should concern anyone designing connectivity policy: the operator says it tried to use the R100 voucher scheme and the UK Gigabit voucher scheme to fund network upgrades, and found both built around the scale and paperwork of much larger companies, not a community-run network.
This is the flip side of the community-network model we celebrate on our Global spotlight page. Volunteer and cooperative networks can do things commercial rollout won't — but only if public schemes are actually built to support them, not just the incumbents.