Stirling is firmly on track to become a world-leading Gigabit City, with nearly every home and business expected to gain access to full-fibre connections by summer 2020.

CityFibre has completed more than half of its infrastructural work bringing full-fibre directly to households and business premises across the city of Stirling and Bridge of Allan.

More residents than ever before will be able to benefit from the significantly superior internet services through the use of Vodafone’s Gigafast Broadband. Services installed by CityFibre, which use faster, more reliable fibre optic cables, provide users with download speeds up to 20 times faster than before, with upload speeds also around 150 times faster than the average fixed broadband service.

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Councillor Scott Farmer, leader of Stirling Council, commented: “We are proud Stirling is well on its way to becoming the nation’s first completed Gigabit City project and believe it is the start of a huge digital opportunity for businesses and residents in the area.

“This forward-thinking approach and strategic partnership with CityFibre and Vodafone ensures we are securing the critical digital infrastructure we need today, as well as helping to safeguard the digital future of our residents and businesses.”

Elaine Doherty, CityFibre’s city manager for Stirling, added: “This is superb news for the residents and businesses of Stirling. People are enjoying greater reliability and speeds, while local businesses are being given the opportunity to use a world-class network, providing them with a huge advantage against competing businesses both nationally and around the globe.”

The Stirling Gigabit City project forms part of CityFibre’s £2.5 billion Gigabit City investment, which aims to bring full-fibre services to five million homes and businesses by 2025.

The full-fibre network rollout commenced in November 2018, and so far has reached Cambusbarron, Broomridge, Bannockburn, Braehead and Raploch. Residents of Torbrex, St Ninians, Bridge of Allan and Riverside are next in line to benefit from the new network.

Stirling Council is using CityFibre’s network to connect key public sites such as schools, libraries and community venues. It also serves as a backbone for the future deployment of 5G and a range of IoT and Smart City applications.

Bruce Crawford, MSP for the Stirling constituency, said: “It’s great to see the progress that is being made across the city area, and I’m excited about what this means for my constituents.

“Already, people are connected to some of the fastest broadband speeds in the UK, which is excellent news for households here. I look forward to the next stages of this rollout, and to even more people getting connected to full-fibre broadband.”