THOUSANDS more residents across Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire are set to benefit from superfast broadband.

The pledge was made yesterday by Michael Matheson, Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity, as it was revealed more than 900,000 premises across Scotland are now able to connect to fibre broadband for the first time.

Scores of new fibre street cabinets have been installed in the local area as part of the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband roll-out, with engineers from Openreach laying hundreds of kilometres of cable.

And this work will continue into next year.

Mr Matheson said: “Fast and reliable internet is absolutely vital to communities across Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire. It helps businesses stay connected with customers and colleagues and helps families learn, work, play and shop.

“The Scottish Government is not stopping there. Our Reaching 100 per cent programme, backed by an initial £600million investment, plans to deliver superfast broadband access to every home and business in Scotland by the end of 2021 – the only part of the UK to do so.”

Fibre broadband offers reliable connections at speeds of up to 80Mbps.

There are many suppliers to choose from but local people need to sign up for the new, faster services with an internet service provider, as upgrades are not automatic.

Robert Thorburn, fibre partnership director for Openreach in Scotland, said: “Good connectivity is essential to a strong local economy and lets people live, learn, work and build businesses locally.

“Our engineers have delivered more coverage at faster speeds than expected.”