businessinfomag.uk
magazine
28
Dave Millett looks at what the UK needs to do to improve its telecoms
infrastructure in 2017.
Just what will 2017 mean for
telecoms in the UK?What became
apparent in 2016, and will become
even more significant in 2017 as
Brexit negotiations start, is how
far the UK is lagging behind the
world in its telecoms infrastructure.
Report after report highlighted the
deficiencies and their increasing
impact.
The UK is ranked 54th in the world
for 4G coverage, bottom in Europe for
availability of fibre broadband to the
premise, and half of businesses have
no access to cheap fibre broadband.
The country with the fifth largest
economy in the world actually
has one of the worst technology
infrastructures amongst developed
nations. The situation is so bad some
people have resorted to building their
own broadband, including a farmer in
Lancashire (
technology-37974267).
Brexit negotiations will start in
earnest in 2017 and it’s claimed the
aim is to ensure that the UK will
again become a global trading nation
attracting businesses from over the
world to invest and locate here.
However, our backwards infrastructure
could become a major barrier.
A number of technology trends
are magnifying the significance of our
poor infrastructure and will place even
greater demands on it. In the UK, mobile
data traffic soared by 64% in 2016,
while residential and small business
fixed broadband traffic grew by 40%.
So what is the Government doing
about it? In 2017, will the UK start
to address the shortcomings in our
telecoms infrastructure or will we get
left even further behind?
Firstly, at a consumer level, even
though iPhone sales were down 12%
on value in the third quarter of 2016,
almost 75% of the UK population
now own a smartphone. Average data
usage is expected to grow five-fold by
2020. In part, this is due to new uses
for devices such as augmented reality
(AR). Last summer, a large percentage of
the population became obsessed with
collecting Pokemon characters, and in
2017 business applications using AR will
start to appear. These could be floorplans
appearing as you stand outside houses
for sale or insurance quotes that can be
accessed by viewing your car through
your phone.
Secondly, in 2017 we will increasingly
hear about the Internet of Things
(IoT), and this will be used for far more
than the control of heating through
a smartphone. Research firm Gartner
predicts that by 2020 there will be twice
as many connected devices (25 billion
connections) as mobile devices. All of
these will use bandwidth. Yet, barely 65%
of the UK land mass has access to 4G
and many parts of the country, especially
in rural areas, struggle to get 2G.
Thirdly, from a business perspective,
Telecoms in 2017:
what needs to be done?
cloud computing will continue to grow.
Research from the Cloud Industry Forum
(CIF) shows that the overall Cloud
adoption rate in the UK now stands
at 84%, with almost four in five cloud
users (78%) having adopted two or
more Cloud services. This in part reflects
the fact that many more software
applications are available in a Cloud
format, from basic Microsoft applications
and simple storage, such as Dropbox, to
CRM solutions, such as Salesforce, and
much larger Citrix and ERP solutions.
All of which increase the demand on
broadband capacity.
Unfortunately, a significant
proportion of businesses in major cities
and business parks still have no access
to fibre broadband. They are forced to
pay for expensive dedicated circuits,
which can cost ten or 20 times as
much. Although BT has said they will
start Fibre to the Premise (FTTP) pilots
around business parks, fewer than 2% of
premises in the UK have access to the
technology. This compares to almost
40% in the leading countries in Europe.
Finally, the move towards the Cloud
for phone systems continues to grow
apace. The latest figures from Cavell
Group show that the Hosted Telephony
market grew by 11% last year. And, with
the end of ISDNs announced for 2025,
the SIP market has also shown strong
growth, at almost 10%.
The premise-based phone market
continues to decline, with Toshiba pulling
out of the UK in 2016 and Avaya beset
by rumours of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. All
of this will create even more demand for
broadband connectivity.
Who’s to blame?
So how did we get to this poor state of
affairs and who is to blame?
The Government creates the
environment in which telecoms operates.
It has failed to set targets or get tough
with the big players.With 3G and 4G
licence auctions, it focused on raising
David Millet
Telephony
Average data
usage is
expected to
grow five-fold
by 2020
