Highland Broadband brings Gigabit fiber to UK’s slowest broadband town with Adtran

News summary:

• With speeds of 2.8Mbit/s, the residents of Halkirk, Scotland, struggled with unreliable connectivity and limited access to the digital world
• Highland Broadband harnessed Adtran’s open, intelligent XGS-PON fiber platform, delivering Gigabit speeds to homes and businesses
• Deployment provides ultra-fast, AI-optimized Wi-Fi 7, showcasing the commercial potential for fiber expansion in isolated, rural areas

HALKIRK, Scotland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Adtran today announced that Highland Broadband has transformed internet connectivity in Halkirk, Scotland, a village previously identified as the UK’s slowest broadband location in a 2023 study by Broadband Genie. Built on Adtran's open, intelligent XGS-PON fiber access technology, the new network delivers Gigabit speeds to homes and businesses, removing the digital barriers that once held the community back. Until now, residents faced slow, unreliable connections that limited education, remote work and economic opportunities. By bridging this gap, Highland Broadband is proving that rural fiber expansion is both achievable and commercially viable, using a scalable, future-proof network to bring lasting digital inclusion to underserved communities.

“At Highland Broadband, we’re committed to delivering world-class connectivity to Scotland’s furthest away communities,” said Colin Woodward, managing director of Highland Broadband. “Halkirk’s transformation proves that no town is too small or too far away to benefit from full-fiber broadband. Leveraging Adtran's technology and the support of its team, we’ve built a network that provides Gigabit speeds and ensures long-term, high-quality internet access. This deployment expands opportunities for residents and businesses, enabling education, commerce and digital services that were previously out of reach. It demonstrates that high-speed fiber can succeed even in the most challenging locations, setting a blueprint for future rural broadband expansion.”

Highland Broadband’s network is powered by Adtran’s XGS-PON fiber access platform, delivering speeds up to 10Gbit/s to meet growing demand. The deployment features Adtran’s 631 ONTs for ultra-reliable connectivity with future-ready scalability, along with 8733 Wi-Fi 7 residential gateways that provide seamless whole-home coverage. With AI-driven insights from Mosaic One, Highland Broadband can remotely monitor and optimize network performance, reducing costly truck rolls. Automated provisioning and bandwidth management ensure efficient scaling while maintaining reliability. These capabilities make rural fiber broadband both achievable and cost-effective, enabling Highland Broadband to efficiently expand connectivity across Scotland’s most remote communities.

“Highland Broadband is proving that no community is too out of the way to access world-class connectivity. Just months ago, Halkirk was known as the UK’s slowest broadband town – now it’s home to one of the fastest networks in the country,” commented Stuart Broome, GM of EMEA sales at Adtran. “By deploying our open, intelligent XGS-PON platform and AI-driven Mosaic One software, Highland Broadband has delivered a scalable, future-ready network that ensures homes, businesses and community hubs can thrive. This transformation is more than just a speed upgrade – it’s a demonstration that full-fiber broadband in rural areas is not only possible but commercially sustainable, ensuring long-term digital inclusion for communities that have historically been left behind.”

About Adtran

ADTRAN Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADTN and FSE: QH9) is the parent company of Adtran, Inc., a leading global provider of open, disaggregated networking and communications solutions that enable voice, data, video and internet communications across any network infrastructure. From the cloud edge to the subscriber edge, Adtran empowers communications service providers around the world to manage and scale services that connect people, places and things. Adtran solutions are used by service providers, private enterprises, government organizations and millions of individual users worldwide. ADTRAN Holdings, Inc. is also the majority shareholder of Adtran Networks SE, formerly ADVA Optical Networking SE. Find more at Adtran, LinkedIn and X.

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ADTRAN Holdings, Inc.
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