For the record, this Blog post has been updated in July 2024 …

StrathspeyNow is a project created to engage with home and business owners across the Strathspey.

Run by Destination Digital Ltd, we manage award-winning integrated digital communication and services. We created and are running Scotland and the UK’s only Digital Improvement District, CuparNow – a unique project in Fife supporting more than 400 businesses and over 90 community groups with managed, integrated communication shared across multiple digital channels. In Five years, we have built an engaged digital audience that is 10 times that of the town’s popoulation.

Who is ‘Destination Digital’?

Destination Digital was set up for the purpose of researching and creating digital solutions for towns and places. Our sister company, Destination66, is an integrated communication provider, managing communication using digital and social media channels to engage with multiple audiences.

Why set up StrathspeyNow?

We became increasingly aware of the need for improved connectivity through our day to day work.

The opportunity we explored was the creation of a gigabit-capable community network to cover substantially larger areas than have previously been created: to date, home or business owners have sometimes come together to form ‘community fibre partnerships’ but, as you may be aware, these have tended to be relatively small clusters of properties extending (at most) to circa 20 owners in very small geographical areas. By their nature, they try to deliver fibre to each premises – often a very costly and protracted process.

Our plans have been different: anchored to fibre (ultimately, as almost all broadband offerings are) we evaluated demand for a gigabit-capable service to be deployed wirelessly. You can read historic media coverage of our work across Strathspey.

How is this being funded?

There is government funding available to help with this project through a voucher scheme that provides support for eligible properties.

After our registration period, we evaluated demand and, based on the response, connected homes and businesses across 2022-2024 covering more than 50 square miles of Strathspey.

What are the benefits?

Beyond the deployment of a minimum ‘superfast’ and a wished for ‘ultrafast’ service, our community network has delivered community benefits – not only providing gigabit-capable access but also reinvesting in a number of community-support initiatives.

Sadly, that model has come to a close: we have ended the partnership we forged with the internet service provider delivering wireless broadband across Strathspey.

We worked on the development of StrathspeyNow for more than four years. It has been a project in which we have invested considerable time and resource in the belief that we were creating something different – a locally-deployed broadband network that would deliver genuine community benefit.

We are very proud that we helped to create, launch and build what we believe to be Scotland’s largest rural community-benefit broadband network. But that ‘benefit’ relied on a shared vision. It has become clear that our internet service provider, Transmit Air, no longer shares that vision and so we have decided to end the agreement we had with them.

What does that mean for StrathspeyNow’s customers?

It is our understanding that they will continue to provide their service, just not in support of our community-benefit work. We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been involved to date – in our research, public engagement, liaison with local partners and stakeholders as well as the resulting launch and build of this unique broadband network. Each and every person that has supported us has been instrumental.

We are invested in Strathspey with friends, family and colleagues living across the area. We all learn lessons: we are now back to the drawing board to research funding streams that will be our own and no longer rely on third parties. Seperately, looking at new areas, Destination Digital is now an approved Internet Service Provider in its own right, operating under the Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme. The company are also members of the UK Wireless Internet Service Providers Association and are registered with the Ofcom Ombudsman for customer protection.

Rest assured, we will do all we can to continue our work to support local businesses, community groups, cultural and tourism projects, education and training providers, environmental initiatives as well as health and social care partnerships – all in the knowledge that our work helps to add to the area’s economic sustainability.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you for reading.