technologyreseller.co.uk 31 SWITCH-OFF that message. We shall continue to work with all stakeholders, supporters, policy makers and the media to ensure that the UK achieves the potential that a digital upgrade delivers." Jamie Hughes, UK Sales Director, Evolve IP “The refinement of BT’s digital switchover programme will be welcomed by those who are mostly not prepared or not aware of the upcoming changes, but it leaves providers such as ourselves and our channel frustrated. We have campaigns to drive customers to adopt a cloud-first strategy or to be supported in a hybrid world with solutions that will accommodate their analogue cabling. “That said, the recent Evolve IP Partner Day at the Williams Exhibition Centre near Oxford highlighted how technology never stands still and continually evolves. In a world of super-charged UCaaS solutions, driven by AI, traditional on-premise alternatives are rapidly being overtaken. “By 2028 cloud communication adoption is forecast to reach 15.9m users, from 10.9m users this year, with 88.3% penetration in a market worth £1.86bn. As frustrating as it is, BT’s roadmap delay won’t halt this momentum.” Julien Parven, Director of Partner Business, Daisy “I think the deferment of the final deadline (I’m not going to use the term postponement) was to an extent inevitable. I also think it is beneficial. “It was inevitable because there just hasn’t been executive sponsorship at a government level, even though the switch-off is an ideal vehicle for propelling us towards the government’s goal of a ‘superfast Britain’. “Cast your mind back to the analogue to digital TV switch-over and the coverage and level of sponsorship that received. To my mind the PSTN switch-off is of much greater significance. It is probably the single most significant event to have happened within telecoms in the last 30 years, but there has been very little official endorsement of it. “As a result, businesses tend to respond to it in one of four ways: some acknowledge that it's happening and are already on that digital journey, often prompted by channel partners; some have a degree of apathy and think December 2025 is a long way off and all they have to do to go from the old technology to the new is to flick a switch; a third group doesn’t believe it will ever happen; and, lastly, there are those who are living in ignorance and know nothing about it. This is where ‘promotion’ at an executive and commercial level is required to bring it front of mind. “The fact that there hasn't been any official, public acknowledgement of the switch-off is detrimental to UK business and is partly why there's an estimated 9.2 million PSTN assets still out there that need to be transferred. “A lot of those PSTN assets are invisible. Businesses may not realise they're there or they might take them for granted and not know what the underlying technology is. Often, these are critical services that need to be live at all times, such as alarm systems, keyholder alerts and emergency phones in lifts. The physical job of transitioning such assets onto an IoT solution or some IP back service is going to be a challenge given that we are already in mid-2024. The deferment gives an opportunity for those assets to be properly looked at and understood. “I would strongly encourage channel partners to take advantage of the air space to sit down with customers and have conversations about auditing their estate, which may have been in situ for 5, 10, 15 or 20 years, to properly understand whether assets in the estate are needed or whether they’re redundant but still being paid for. It's not a cost-saving exercise. It's about reinvesting money being spent on unused assets and becoming a digital business. “The channel community is ideally positioned to have that conversation, perform that audit and really get under the skin of a business's telco infrastructure so that they can suggest changes and implement them in a transitional way. It gives those businesses a proper foundation for their ICT plans and an opportunity to look at how they adopt new technologies to create efficiencies, improve productivity and, ultimately, boost profitability. “Gaining a deep understanding of where a business is today and where it wants to be tomorrow is so important because there is no one-size-fits-all or take-it-or-leave-it solution. IP may not be the right solution for everything. In some instances, a resilient multi-tiered IoT service that naturally switches between the strongest available mobile network might be the best option. “I use a very cliched analogy that if you take your kids shopping for a new pair of trainers, you're not going to buy the same pair that you bought two years ago because they will have grown, changed shape and developed different interests. That’s no different to what we're doing here – the services a business procured in the past probably won’t satisfy their needs moving forward. “The key thing is for businesses not to do this in isolation but to have a proper engagement with their provider around where they see their business in 3, 5, 10 years’ time and how to future-proof their technology to enable them to achieve those goals.” Jamie Hughes Julien Parven
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDUxNDM=