NETWORKS & OPERATORS
5G promises much, but this is yet to be revealed
FAST FACTS
Each August industry regular Ofcom
publishes their extensive UK Communication
Market Review and their latest report
highlights some of the key trends emerging.
FIXED VOICE SERVICES
• Fixed voice services generated £1.9bn in
revenues in Q2 2018, a decrease of 3.5%
quarter-on-quarter and down 7.9% from
Q2 2017. BT’s share of these revenues
was 42.4%, a decrease of 1.1 percentage
points from the previous year.
• Access revenues decreased by £33m
from Q1 2018, while call revenues fell by
£37m during the same period.
• There were 32.7 million fi xed exchange
lines (including PSTN and ISDN channels)
in Q2 2018, 345k (1.0%) fewer than in
Q1 2018 and a 1.6% (516k) year-on-year
decrease. BT’s share of these lines
remained stable during the quarter, at
38.6%.
• UK fi xed telephony lines generated 11.3
billion minutes of outgoing calls in Q2
2018, down by 15% (2.0 billion minutes)
compared to Q2 2017.
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
(79%) and Germany (65%), and last for the
availability of ultrafast broadband products
with an advertised speed of 300Mbit/s or
higher, at less than 2%.
However, Ofcom says that Virgin Media’s
launch of 300Mbit/s services on its cable/
FTTP network in March 2017 signi cantly
increased the availability of ultrafast
broadband in the UK since the end of 2016.
Overall, the UK ranked third among the
EU5 countries, after Germany and France,
for the price of three baskets of dual-play
xed broadband and landline services.
ED SAYS…
Most people in the UK are dependent on their digital devices, and need
a constant connection to the internet, following a decade of digital
transformation revealed by Ofcom today. In contrast to a decade
ago, most people now say they need and expect a constant internet
connection, wherever they go. Two thirds of adults (64%) say the
internet is an essential part of their life. One in fi ve adults (19%) say
they spend more than 40 hours a week online, up from 5% just over
ten years ago.
It is important to note that some premises
in ADSL - enabled areas may not be able
to receive broadband services or may only
be able to do so at very low speeds, due
to reasons such as the long length or poor
quality of the copper telephone line from the
premises to the local exchange.
e UK also ranked rst for the
availability of bre broadband networks (at
87%, 2% ahead of Italy), although it ranked
last for the availability of ‘full bre’ FTTP
networks (at less than 2%).
e UK continued to lead the EU5 in
both basic and superfast broadband coverage,
based on advertised (rather than actual)
speeds. Ofcom used advertised speeds as it
was not possible to source comparable actual
speed data.
Basic xed broadband with advertised
speeds of ‘up to’ 10Mbit/s or more was
available to 98% of households in the UK,
while superfast broadband with advertised
speeds of ‘up to’ 30Mbit/s or more was
available to 92% of households. However,
the UK ranked third for the availability
of broadband with advertised speeds of
100Mbit/s or more (49%), behind Spain
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