Exclusive:Q&A: Why full fibre is not as sexy as Starlink - but could drive £4 billion boost to Scotland

Katie Milligan is Chief Commercial Officer and Scotland Board Chair of Openreach, the company, owned by BT Group, which maintains the telephone cables, ducts, cabinets and exchanges that connect nearly all our homes and businesses.

Looking ahead to 2025, what are the key trends and shifts you anticipate in the sector?

Whether it’s streaming, gaming or working, we already know 2025 will be another record year for household data consumption. More people will migrate to the new high-capacity broadband network we’re building across Scotland - Cebr research has shown that connecting everyone to fibre would drive a £4bn economic boost by 2029.

Innovation in the broadband sector is constant, and a range of providers and network builders will ensure healthy competition and customer choice continues in the year ahead. While some eyes may continue to turn skyward to new services like Starlink, the reality for most people is that full fibre is the most reliable, cost effective and accessible option. I welcome competition because it keeps us sharp and focused on being the absolute best we can be.

Katie Milligan, Chief Commercial Officer and Scotland Board Chair, Openreach | Openreach / Canva

I make no secret of the fact fibre cables in the ground can be a tougher ‘sell’ than rockets and satellites, but what they enable is 100 per cent essential to the future success of a digitally driven Scottish economy.

How will Openreach adapt, what's your focus for the New Year?

As an industry, we’re bucking the trend of underinvestment and we’re directly investing £15bn in the UK’s digital infrastructure. We’ve built to hundreds of thousands of Scottish homes and businesses this year, whilst driving down the cost of reaching each one. This approach will continue in 2025 as we aim to continue building at pace, filling in connectivity ‘not-spots’ as we go, and working hand in hand with government.

What challenges do you foresee for the sector in Scotland in 2025, and what needs done?

When I talk about the realities of building infrastructure in Scotland, most people assume it’s the wild places that pose the biggest challenges, but the reality is perhaps more surprising. Our engineers are brilliant at finding ingenious solutions to issues like devising special build plans for national parks and environmentally sensitive sites, or connecting some of Scotland’s most remote islands. What is more frustrating is the fact that all too often tenements or flats in our biggest cities prove harder nuts to crack.

Openreach engineer on Iona | Openreach

In Scotland, fibre providers need every single property owner with shared rights to communal spaces to give their consent to put full fibre into a tenement, and absent owners or landlords can make that impossible. At the same time – across the UK – tenants don’t have an automatic right to request broadband upgrades in their rented property, even though we know from independent research that landlords would support this. We’re hoping common sense will prevail at a government level on issues like these, which are a major blocker to our fibre rollout. Places like Leith have some of the highest levels of flat-dwellers anywhere in Scotland, so we need to crack this to avoid a new digital divide.

And what emerging technologies and innovations will be significant?

Better connectivity now underpins almost everything we do in our professional and personal lives. Whether it’s ‘internet of things’ devices or the latest AI assistants, connected technology is rapidly changing how we live, work and do business.

I’ve seen customers get quite emotional when they get access to faster services – that’s the reality of what we do and it’s a huge motivator.

Openreach van on a highland road | Openreach

Innovation is vital to get faster broadband to more of Scotland, more quickly. I take huge pride in how we’ve developed technology to do things like transmit fibre signals over much longer distances, avoid disruptive roadworks and use adapted drones to carry cables to remote places. We wouldn’t have been able to upgrade Fair Isle and other islands without new engineering innovations, and we’re working on more so watch this space.

AI will continue to be a gamechanger. We’re using it in various ways, such as to plan the fastest cable routes, optimise engineers’ schedules so less energy is used, and make life simpler for customers.

These and other innovations are already helping us reach thousands of households and businesses across Scotland – and many more in the future.

How influential will huge global political and economic changes be for Openreach?

Like almost every business we face plenty of headwinds, but I don’t believe in shying away from a challenge. Every time I go out with our engineers I’m struck by their can-do attitude and immense capacity for problem solving – and that is how Openreach must approach the broader climate. There are, of course, practical considerations that politicians and other organisations could make to facilitate the faster rollout of full fibre, but we will always engage in good faith and offer positive options wherever we can.

Katie Milligan, Chief Commercial Officer and Scotland Board Chair, Openreach | Openreach

Better connectivity can help Scotland tackle many of the challenges we would like to overcome.

What one wish would you have for the Scottish economy and business community in 2025?

We are a small nation with huge capability and my one wish is for us all to maximise this in 2025. The partners we work with show the immense value in collaborative working, and I firmly believe there are more opportunities for the Scottish business community to pull together to tackle some of the biggest challenges we face. The Scottish Government has indicated its willingness to be more open to business too, and these factors are vital if we are to realise the inherent benefits of our smaller size.