Business Info - issue 135

01732 759725 magazine 21 TELECOMS 2017 had its pluses and minuses for telecoms. You’ll remember reading some of the reports showing how badly the UK is doing in terms of its telecoms infrastructure. On the plus side, we got free roaming in Europe, the launch of the first £1,000 Apple mobile and visions of a new future powered by Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things. So, what can we expect in 2018? Handset innovations After the launching the iPhone X Apple is now looking at a bendy iPhone. The company has filed a US patent application for a phone with "a flexible portion that allows the device to be folded". Microsoft was recently granted a patent for a tablet device that folded up to become a phone. And Samsung is reportedly working on a folding phone called the Galaxy X, a rumor that has long been circulating. Whilst a folding phone may help with broken screens, what most people want is a return to a phone that can run on a single charge for a week. Samsung’s research into graphene batteries could provide the answer. The potential is for a battery with up to 45% more capacity that can fully charge in just 12 minutes. Sounds like a return to the old Nokia phones that were relaunched in 2017. The all-important battery life Improving battery is one of the factors that will be key to the success of the Internet of Things (IOT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) as we become an ‘always connected’ society. AI is set to become a regularly heard phrase in 2018. Last year Google unveiled a program called AlphaGo, which can master the complex Chinese game of Go in just three days. Google has a plan to put itself on an ‘AI first’ footing and is looking at embedding AI capability in all Google products and services.Where Google goes others will follow; competing manufacturers will be looking at placing AI chips in their smartphones soon. Dave Millett explains what’s wrong with the UK telecoms infrastructure and how it can be improved to enable UK businesses to compete more effectively Less talk, more action Last year we were ranked 54th in the world for 4G coverage, 31st in the world for average broadband speeds and the worst in Europe for the rollout of Fibre to the Premise (FTTP) Continuing landline switch In the landline world, SIP and VoIP will continue their relentless advance to replace ISDN. The crossover point has been reached, with more businesses now connected by IP than analogue. Despite the claims of pushy, unscrupulous providers, analogue will be here until 2025 so those businesses yet to switch over still have plenty of time. But watch out for signing new long-term deals. The reality of UK infrastructure Twenty-first century communications all sounds very exciting until the hype of new advances meets the reality of the UK’s antiquated and creaking infrastructure. Last year we were ranked 54th in the world for 4G coverage, 31st in the world for average broadband speeds and the worst in Europe for the rollout of Fibre to the Premise (FTTP). If the UK is to reap the benefits of the new technologies, this has to be addressed. The current plans are wholly uninspiring. It can only be hoped that the Government and the regulators take a tougher, more interventionist approach in 2018, as letting the operators solve the problem clearly has not worked. The targets that have been set are outdated and, even if achieved, will still leave us lagging behind our competitors. The Government wants everyone to have access to a minimum of 10 Mbps broadband by 2020.Whilst 10 Mbps may have been reasonable when the target was set several years ago, it is no longer fit for purpose considering the growth of the Internet of Things and the steadily increasing range of streaming services. By contrast, the EU Digital Agenda goal is to deliver 30Mbps or more for all by the same date. Japan and South Korea expect to have 5G up and working by 2020, whereas we hope for just some coverage by 2025. The operators seem to have little desire to solve the problem themselves. In terms of broadband, we are the poor man of Europe. BT claims to have 345,000 premises connected to FTTP, but almost 30% of them are in Cornwall as part of an EU-funded project. BT’s published plans show they will barely have achieved 10% by the end of 2020. On average, the rest of Europe achieved that in 2016! So, our position as the slow man of Europe is unlikely to change. There are regional variations, with roll-outs from other ‘full fibre’ providers, such as KCOM, Gigaclear, Hyperoptic and B4RN. This has created a postcode lottery for getting decent FTTP broadband. Digital deserts persist It is a similar picture with mobile.Who remembers the ‘agreement’ struck between the Government and the mobile operators in 2014 that gave them three years to improve coverage and remove not-spots in return for the Government not enforcing roaming in the UK? The then Culture Secretary Sajid Javid said it was a landmark deal with the four mobile networks to improve mobile coverage across the UK. Under the agreement all four of the mobile networks collectively agreed to: n a guaranteed £5bn investment programme to improve mobile infrastructure by 2017; n guaranteed voice and text coverage from each operator across 90% of the Dave Millett Continued...