…the Project

What is Pathfinder North?

Pathfinder North is a project to implement a high-speed future-proof broadband network across the Highlands and Islands local authorities, largely funded by the Scottish Government.

Pathfinder North is a partnership of five local authorities:

Argyll and Bute Council
Highland Council
Moray Council
Orkney Islands Council
Shetland Islands Council

who came together to facilitate a combined solution to broadband implementation across the region.

What is Pathfinder North Implementing?

The Pathfinder North Rollout is designed to connect 800 local authority sites such as schools, libraries, social work offices and other Council buildings across the Highlands and Islands.

It will also provide the authorities with high bandwidth internet access, inter-VPN connections between the authorities and Remote Access Services (RAS) for the authorities end-users.

Why do we need high-speed Broadband?

The high-speed broadband that Pathfinder North is implementing will allow the authorities to run advanced computer software applications. such as real-time video conferencing, interactive service provision to the public and multimedia rich education applications to enhance the traditional learning environment in schools.

More specifically for education, it will allow all schools across the region to connect to GLOW, the national schools intranet (www.glowscotland.org.uk for more details), which is set to transform the way education is delivered in Scotland.

It will also allow connection to other internet services, as well as, for example, allow teachers in one school to deliver lessons remotely via video conferencing.

Councils will also be able to modernise service delivery, improve efficiency as well as boost the provision of services to the public across the region.

Who is implementing Pathfinder North?

The procurement went out to tender between March 2004 and May 2006 and THUS plc were appointed the preferred supplier in July 2006. A contract was signed between THUS plc and the Pathfinder North Partners on 21st March 2007.

The project is one of the largest telecoms build projects in the UK, with THUS plc extending their core network infrastructure across the Highlands and Islands, and connecting 800 end-user sites.