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Scotland urged to learn broadband lessons from Cornwall
Policymakers in Scotland have been told to consider the achievements of the Superfast Cornwall broadband project.
By next year, the Superfast Cornwall project is aiming to have rolled out 260,000 fibre optic broadband lines covering more than 80 per cent of the local population.
While that level of coverage already exists in some parts of Scotland, the country's broadband take-up stands at 65 per cent - below the UK average - and next-generation access is available to only two-fifths of households.
Nigel Ashcroft, project director of Superfast Cornwall, claimed that although there are differences between the topography of the two areas, there is no reason why the south-west county's broadband success could not be replicated north of the border.
"Cornwall has a lot of similarities to Scotland," he was quoted by the Herald Scotland as saying.
"My message is that if you want to do it you can do it. If politically you want to build a world-class network then it can be done. If you don't really 'get it', then there are all sorts of reasons you can find not to."
Cornwall's fibre optic broadband rollout is being conducted by BT, which pledged to invest £78.5 million in the scheme, supplemented by £53.5 million of funds from the European Union.
The total cash pot of £132 million is less than a third of the amount spent by the Scottish government on Edinburgh's tram network.
It is believed that super-fast broadband will be available at half of Cornwall's telephone exchanges by autumn 2012. The rollout will bring an estimated 4,000 jobs to the area, while 2,000 existing jobs are expected to be saved by the initiative.
BT's deployment involves a combination of fibre to the cabinet - offering speeds of up to 40Mbps - and fibre to the home, which features headline download rates of 100Mbps.