This is for the £800 million Aberdeen development to make it 'the most connected community in Scotland'

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SSE Enterprise Telecoms – one of the UK’s leading connectivity suppliers, and part of SSE plc – today announced that it has won a competitive tender from advanced fibre broadband specialists Grain to deliver network connectivity to Countesswells, a new £800 million development in Aberdeen.

Countesswells will become home to a new community of residents, schools and businesses five miles outside of Aberdeen. The development represents a significant investment in new housing, job prospects and infrastructure to support the local economy. When completed, the new community will comprise 3,000 homes, two primary schools and an academy, community facilities, shops, offices, playparks and civic spaces all set within landscaped parkland and the existing woodland.

Connectivity is set to be key to the appeal of Countesswells, after developer Stewart Milne Group identified the need for a state-of-the-art gigabit fibre network, in light of recent property developments that have been plagued with insufficient broadband connections.

Connectivity in the north-east of Scotland is also high on the UK Government agenda, with the recent news that Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire councils will each receive around £10m to test innovative ways of connecting offices and public sector buildings with the next generation of broadband.

To deliver the planned hyperfast connectivity – which will measure at up to 35 times faster than the average UK download speed – Grain needed a network partner that had a national fibre backbone that could support these high speeds, while offering uncontended connectivity. Seamless connectivity will become increasingly important as the average number of connected devices per family household rises to 50 by 2022, with more strain put on domestic broadband connections.

SSE Enterprise Telecoms’ ever-expanding network and previous experience assured Grain that it had selected the right partner to meet immediate and long-term objectives.