MARKET REPORT Connectivity - Digital Britain
“The opportunity that full fibre brings to the channel is huge and there are a lot of
expectations around the rollout.” Richard Thompson, Director of Partners, TalkTalk Business
The yearly industry review by UK regulator Ofcom published this summer
as CMR 2019 throws up a number of observations on the how users are
driving the need for faster and faster connectivity for their devices.
OFCOM CMR 2019
• Internet take-up and smartphone ownership are both unchanged in
2019. Household internet take-up remains at 87%, and 79% of UK
adults personally use a smartphone.
• Consumers are upgrading to faster broadband. The number of fi breto
the-cabinet connections overtook standard broadband copper
connections for the fi rst time this year, and the number of superfast
broadband lines increased by 17% as people upgraded from standard
broadband services.
• People are using more data. The volume of data used on fi xed and
mobile connections both grew by around a quarter, with 240GB
being used on average each month per fi xed broadband connection
and 2.9GB in an average month being used on each mobile data
connection.
• Much of the growth in data use is driven by online video. Fifty-eight
per cent of people watched on-demand video services, up from 53%.
This is driven by increased use of subscription video-on demand
Jola commented, “ e UK is very in the market, there are some
well positioned in the move to
essential principals that the
services such as Netfl ix and Amazon Prime Video.
IP. Most connectivity is FTTC
channel can depend on and
or Ethernet and the emergence
plan for - three of which are;
of 5G and FTTP will simply
• Copper will go, Openreach
improve speeds and reliability
are doggedly sticking to their
and encourage adoption.”
withdrawal date, and whilst
Paul North - Head of Sales
that could slide, the end
at Entanet says that the success
position is inevitable
of the UK’s evolution from
• We believe that in 2021
out-dated, copper-based services
Openreach will have aligned
to a full bre future that’s t
their 100Mb and 1Gb bearer
for a ‘Digital Britain’ will be
pricing, resulting in the
in ensuring the transition is
market moving to consume
something the whole industry
only 1Gb and 10Gb bearer
owns.
services. ere will therefore
“It’s not just about
be a place for a business grade
Openreach shutting down its
FTTP proposition
legacy platforms to save costs,
• 5G will be in the connectivity
it’s an opportunity to open
mix, but I don’t see it
the market up and give UK
replacing primary bre
businesses a much better range
connectivity in major o ces
of connectivity options than
where bandwidth demands
they had before.
continue to grow apace. I do
Britain – and British
however see it having a key
businesses – will manage
role in smaller o ces, backup
very well in the all-IP world,
services, as well as creating
providing that they do have
new revenue opportunities
access to the full bre services
by connecting previously
that they will need in order to
isolated systems
compete at home, in Europe
Iain Sinnott at VanillaIP says
and in international markets.
there will be di culties ahead
is will become even more
for video services.
important once Britain has left
“Assuming either the
the EU.”
terrestrial, microwave or mobile
Neil Wilson Head of
players deliver a stable data
Products & Marketing at
connection to all parts of the
Virtual 1 thinks that whilst that
country and that businesses have
there are lots of uncertainties
at least a GSM capable phone
to act as an end point, I would
suggest the transition of the
voice and text services will be
easy. e video related services
will be the hardest to deliver
to the worst connected parts of
the country, along with desktop
share and collaboration. Resellers
are going to need to know
their products and have exible
solutions which aren’t just based
around a phone on a desk.”
How can we both promote
and de-hype the expectations
around full fi bre and 5G
capabilities and timescales?
Daren Baythorpe, CEO at
ITS says the UK is in a phase
of bre transition, and this
is factored by schemes and
initiatives to facilitate rollout,
end-user demand, and of course
Openreach’s decision to plan for
the copper switch o .
“With the bene ts of full
bre and 5G connectivity
well understood and rmly
cemented in the long-term
strategies of the government,
the value of the smaller altnet
builders role in this should not
be underestimated. ere are
dozens of innovative businesses
delivering full bre solutions
across the UK. Innovation
such as re-use of existing duct
is complementing the major
network build programmes
and helping to drive faster
penetration of FTTP.
However, while great strides
have been made, there is still a
way to go. is is illustrated in
Ofcom’s Connected Nations
report that revealed overall full
bre (broadband) penetration
in the UK stands at around 7%.
erefore, the biggest challenges
remain the timescales involved,
and the skills needed to deliver
on this vision. We need to
nurture new talent and keep our
existing talent too. ese are
unprecedented times in the UK;
the likes we will not see again.”
“ e 5G hype is huge; and
in many ways, rightly so,” says
Dan Cunli e at Pangea.
“Even in its infancy, test
rollouts and 5G experiments
have blown minds and
challenged what we thought
was possible through
connectivity tech.
However, it’s also true that
there’s a lot of misinformation
out there, and it’s in both
providers and customers’ best
interests to separate truth from >
44 | Comms Business Magazine | September 2019 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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