Connected Communities is a publicly funded wireless broadband network which was developed by HIE in partnership with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar and NHS Western Isles.

It was introduced in 2005 to provide an industry standard network, capable of providing basic connectivity to vital island services including schools and health centres. It also provided services to home and business users across the islands who had no access to mainstream broadband. Internet services are provided by Hebrides.net

The availability of fibre-optic broadband on the Outer Hebrides has changed dramatically.

Public sector premises are migrating to high speed services available through Scottish Wide Area Network (SWAN). More than eight out of ten homes and businesses can now order mainstream broadband. The need for Connected Communities has reduced significantly. 

Given this, and with the high cost of public subsidy for delivery and maintenance of the network, it’s no longer viable or effective to run the Connected Communities network with public funds. It will be discontinued at the end of March 2020.

There are around 500 remaining customers using the network.  There are options to consider for alternative connectivity:

Mainstream fibre broadband

• Some existing customers may find they can order fibre broadband, but have not yet migrated. You can check availability on an online broadband checker hie.co.uk/broadband If available, you can use comparison websites to see the packages you can order with internet service providers.

In some areas fibre may not be available. Building on the Digital Scotland project, these areas are part of the Scottish Government’s £600m broadband project called Reaching 100% (R100). The project is in the final stage of procurement, and more detail on roll-out plans will be available after contract signing.

Other connectivity options

• Many customers in more rural area who can get a 4G signal are using this to provide fast internet/wifi at home. Packages are increasingly competitive.
• Satellite services.

Solutions for rural areas

• Community Fibre Partnership
  If private funding is available, then communities can look at installing fibre based broadband (including fibre to the premises) through Openreach’s ‘ Community Fibre Partnership’ scheme https://communityfibre.openreach.co.uk/
• The ‘Rural Gigabit Voucher scheme’ is a voucher scheme designed to help rural areas receive full fibre broadband. Details on this are here https://gigabitvoucher.culture.gov.uk/rural/
• The Better Broadband Voucher Scheme is now closed for new voucher applications. On 20 March 2020 Ofcom will launch the broadband Universal Service Obligation to be delivered by BT and KCOM. Further details are available here.

We can’t recommend any specific operators, but if you need advice on what to do you can contact HIE’s digital team at hidigital@hient.co.uk

Yes, we have tried to scale down the network and reduce costs as roll-out has progressed.

We have also looked at ways of reducing the high fixed costs or only switching off parts of the network but cannot find any cost-effective basis to continue.

The UK Government has confirmed that universal high speed broadband will be delivered by a regulatory Universal Service Obligation (USO), giving everyone in the UK access to speeds of at least 10 Mbps by 2020.

You can read more detail about the UK Government’s commitment to a regulatory USO here. 10Mbps is the speed that Ofcom, the independent regulator, says is needed to meet the requirements of an average family.

When the network is switched off we plan to remove equipment from mast sites, some of which are already decommissioned. Subscribers are encouraged to remove antennas from their properties and anyone having difficulty in doing this can contact us by email at hidigital@hient.co.uk to arrange removal.