A UNIQUE partnership will see the UK’s fastest broadband brought to remote Highland communities scattered across 26 miles of rugged terrain.

Around 140 homes between Achnasheen and Aultguish in Ross-shire – 40 miles north-west of Inverness – are set to be upgraded to ultrafast technology by the end of the year.

Two-thirds of the properties will received future-proofed fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) from the £428 million Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme, led by Highland and Islands Enterprise (HIE). The remainder will get a full-fibre upgrade through a Community Fibre Partnership with Openreach.

Homes in tiny settlements and hamlets like Achanalt, Lochluichart, Corriemoillie, Little Garve, Gorstan, Grudie and Inchbae will see their broadband reliability, capacity and speeds soar from around 0.5Mbps to the UK’s fastest residential speeds of up to 1Gbps – 2,000 times faster than their current top speed.

The new network started to go live this week, with around 90% of premises in Achnasheen now able to order a service. It follows a year of research by voluntary group Garve and District Broadband (GDB), which looked at all options for delivering broadband in the location.

The group concluded that a resilient, full-fibre network was the only way to deliver for the small communities stretching across the glens.

Additional capacity will cater for data-hungry services and will add more reliability and resilience to the network, meaning that things should be less likely to go wrong in the event of unforeseen circumstances or extreme weather conditions.

Lochluichart Community Trust will invest “substantial” windfarm community benefits alongside its own funding and cash from the Digital Scotland project and the UK Government’s Better Broadband scheme.

Community spokesman Steve Jones said it was an exciting time: “Like many residents I’ve only been getting very slow speeds capped at 0.5Mbps, making even the most basic of online activities difficult and frustrating, so looking forward to ultrafast speeds is fantastic.

“Fast, reliable broadband will bring huge potential to regenerate our scattered communities. It’s a prerequisite for attracting families and businesses to the area, where the population has fallen in recent years. As the online world continues to grow, the Garve and District community won’t be left behind – in fact, with ultrafast broadband on our doorstep, we’ll be leaping way ahead.”

Local businesses are looking forward to the benefits of the new network.

Craig Duffield, partner at the Ledgowan Lodge country house hotel in Achnasheen, who was among the first able to order an ultrafast service, said: “The community has worked really well together to make this happen – it will be great for the area. Trying to operate a business on less than half-a-megabit per second has been frustrating, but now we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Lesley Negri, who runs the historic Aultguish Inn near Garve with her husband Dario, added: “We’ve lived with slow broadband for so long that we can’t imagine what it’s going to be like when we can access ultrafast speeds.”

Robert Thorburn, Openreach partnership director for Scotland, said: “The challenges facing the Garve and District communities were phenomenal and they’ve worked incredibly hard to develop a unique solution.”