After nine years connecting Ullapool, Highland Community Broadband shut down in April 2026. Rising costs did what commercial providers couldn't: ended a working community network. It is a lesson in what happens without structural policy support.
Highland Community Broadband (HCB) started in 2017 as a community response to poor connectivity in Ullapool — exactly the kind of grassroots initiative that WIRES holds up as evidence that communities can solve connectivity problems when the market won't.
In April 2026, HCB closed. The reasons are practical: rising backhaul costs, legal fees, equipment maintenance, and difficulty competing with mobile network upgrades and satellite services such as Starlink. The economics that made a volunteer-built community network viable in 2017 no longer hold.
This matters for two reasons.
First, it is a reminder that community networks are not a permanent substitute for proper policy and investment. HCB did something remarkable for nine years. But a volunteer-run organisation should not be carrying the structural burden of solving a national infrastructure failure. The closure is not a failure of community spirit — it is a failure of the policy environment those communities operate in.
Second, the alternatives HCB users face are imperfect. Starlink provides coverage where it can, but it is neither affordable for everyone nor under any form of public or community control. The same market logic that left Ullapool poorly connected in 2017 now determines what replaces community provision.
HebNet continues operating across the Small Isles and Knoydart, and Highland Broadband (a separate full-fibre provider) continues to expand in other areas. But HCB's closure prompts a direct question for Scottish Government and COSLA: what support exists for community networks that cannot survive on subscriber fees alone when costs rise?
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