The Telecom industry in the United Kingdom is all but steady. Especially with the huge increase in the use of smart phones, of which, stats show seven out of ten people own, and increased data service usage which includes a good 46 percent 4G data service usage in the year 2015, which now means that the internet has taken over a major chunk in the telecommunications sphere.

What was the scenario of the telecom sector in the past- 2015-16?

In terms of what has occurred in the past, which is in 2016, we are aware that there has been a 64 percent increase in mobile data traffic and even home and small businesses internet services had gone up 40 percent. Even the speed of the data increased to 30Mbit/s for 42 percent of total data usage in 2015.

Because of the boom of the internet, other telecommunication sources have spiraled downwards. In 2016, especially because of the excessive use of internet data in the form of apps like Whatsapp, Viber, and IM’s to voice connect to people, telecom carriers were struggling to keep up and fell as far little as 15 percent in roaming, 20 percent in international voice and 30 percent in SMS. And this small amount kept on decreasing owing to minimal revenue growth per user and margins declining nature.            

In 2017, there have been further developments simply following the same thread of trends in 2016. Using the internet for all businesses is a norm and so internet applications are growing rapidly, especially for businesses. For advertising, Augmented Reality apps are a growing field. The growth of IoT means that there is a connection of a variety of smart devices using the internet especially using the smart phone whereof usage has now increased to more than 75 percent of UK population owning a smart phone. In every sector of telecommunication, IoT is bound to spread what with our need to always be connected especially because of improved battery lives of smart phones.

For landlines the battle goes on, the Session Initiation Protocol or SIP along with Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is beating down ISDN.

Even for data and broadband connections, although not many areas in the UK have a strong fibre broadband connection, live streaming videos and watching TV shows on Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu online, is huge in comparison to regular Television cable connections usage. BT has announced that they will begin pilots for Fire to the Premise (FTTP) to businesses but only 2 percent of premises have this technology installed.

What does 2018 have in store for the UK? Here are the predictions made for the Telecommunications sector..  

This is the most exciting part of the industry, looking at what we can expect to learn from the rest of Europe and the world in terms of growing our Telecommunications sector in the UK. These are the expected trends in this year 2018..

·        UK Smart phone usage to increase to 85 percent. 

·        5G trials

·        IoT applications

·        AI and AR involved in all kinds of applications- mobile and web.

·        5 year investment in 100 percent Business rate relief for Fibre Broadband.

·        Plans for 95 percent of UK premises have the ability to be able to buy speedy broadband- 24Mbps.   

·        WiFi connections on flights will grow by 20 percent.