Insights into the future of UK telecoms

With a generated revenue of £31.8bn in 2022, the telecommunications sector plays a significant role in the UK economy. Moreover, the growth of resilient and secure communications networks underpins future developments across all digital innovation – and this ever increasing dependency brings significant challenges, including the development of infrastructures to support current and future demand, the drive towards energy efficiency and tackling cyber security threats. Formed in 2022, UK Telecoms Innovation Network (UKTIN) plays a pivotal role in addressing the challenges the industry faces by providing support for supply chain development and strengthening UK’s future telecoms capabilities in open networks, through to attracting overseas companies and R&D talent, catalysing public and private investment, and proactively promoting UK capability internationally. 

Bringing together industry, academia and government stakeholders is central to UKTIN’s mission to collectively drive transformation in the telecoms sector – and this has included gathering over 250 leading figures to explore the challenges, opportunities and future capabilities of the sector at the 2024 UKTIN Ecosystem Conference .

As a lead partner in UKTIN, Digital Catapult played a central role on the day, leading workshops, sparking lively discussions and sharing learnings on the future capabilities of the telecoms ecosystem.

Here are five key takeaways from our sessions throughout the day:

1. Telecoms is at the heart of everything we do

“Telecoms is the bloodline for everything that is connected and the demand for connectivity across all industries, as well as society as a whole, is clear.”  Ian Smith, Director of UKTIN.

Businesses and consumers alike are increasingly reliant on fast and reliable connections. Covid-19 fundamentally changed how we work with the rapid pivot to remote working, highlighting how telecoms has become central in addressing significant societal problems. Moreover, this demand is set to grow exponentially, with additional connectivity needs sitting at the heart of future digital innovations from smart cities to driverless cars. 

The telecoms sector cannot afford to stand still – it has to become more inventive and forward thinking to meet these connectivity demands in cost effective and energy efficient ways. 

2. The UK is home to telecoms trailblazers  

With a powerful mix of industry, academia and entrepreneurship, the UK is a world-leading research and development hub, home to a community of innovators and a definitive destination for international partners.

The development of world class testing facilities is a key factor in the UK’s position as a global leader in R&D. Vishal Mathur, Global Head of Engagement at Telecom Infra Project (TIP) emphasised that cutting edge, neutral spaces such as Digital Catapult’s SONIC Labs are crucial to giving innovators access to both the space and the expertise to test and refine products in a cost and time effective way. Rigorous interoperability testing of products also underpins confidence in multi vendor systems, which is critical to introduce more products (and choice) into the market and ultimately lead to future adoption of open network technologies.

3. The future success of the telecoms sector depends on the business case and commercialisation

In her keynote speech, Gabriela Styf Sjöman, MD, Research and Networks Strategy, BT explained that “we need a healthy ecosystem that addresses supply chains beyond research, one that addresses the demand of digital connectivity.” 

Understanding and addressing the future needs of businesses and consumers should be at the heart of future development. In response to avoiding some of the fundamental issues associated with the future rollout of 5G, Dan Warren, Director of Communications Research at Samsung R&D UK argued that the key driver of future commercialisation isn’t developing tech innovation; the focus should be on addressing business risk and reliability of service. 

Additionally, Rahim Tafazolli, Professor, 5G/6GIC – University of Surrey highlighted that international collaboration is key for realising the commercial potential of innovation with deep tech in the telecoms sector – and that for the sector to be truly impactful, it needs to be moving in the same direction as other countries. 

4. Open networks technology is here to stay

Diversification of mobile networks is  a hot topic and throughout the conference, opinion around open networks was largely positive, with the view that Open RAN technologies will make a vital contribution to delivering future mobile connectivity. Ros Singleton, Chair of the Telecom Supply Chain Diversification Advisory Council, highlighted the growth in confidence of Open RAN solutions as big players such as Vodafone and Samsung announce support for the tech. 

Stefano Cantarelli,  VP Marketing at Mavenir noted that competition creates and accelerates an environment of innovation, however transformation takes time, money and effort. He also argued that to reach maturity, Open RAN technology needs to be adopted at scale and that the mobile network operators will continue to play a leading role.

5. For long term success, telecoms needs highly skilled people

The telecoms sector faces significant challenges to attract and retain a highly skilled workforce. Sophie Greaves Head of Telecoms and Spectrum Policy at techUK explained how the telecoms sector is now competing for talent with other digital sectors that may appear more appealing. As networks become softwarised, she argued that the telecoms sector needs to work together to make a career in the industry an attractive prospect for those entering the workplace.

Additionally, the sector needs to nurture its engineering skills base, with businesses adopting a culture of lifelong learning to attract and retain the right skills within the sector, as well as ensuring the current workforce is adaptable to the evolving technical challenges faced in an fast-evolving working environment.

How Digital Catapult is helping to address future telecoms challenges

In our role of driving innovation and industry adoption of deep tech, Digital Catapult has forged long term partnerships and developed flagship programmes across the telecoms sector, including: 

UKTIN

UKTIN is the UK’s innovation network for the UK telecoms sector; delivered in partnership by Digital Catapult, Cambridge Wireless, University of Bristol and WM5G. As a lead partner in UKTIN, Digital Catapult is central in bringing together the telecoms community to share ideas and strategically plan for the future. We convene Expert Working Groups and the UKTIN Advisory board as well as lead on UKTIN’s future capabilities activities, mapping and connecting the ecosystem as well as strategically addressing supply and demand through the production of reports and White Papers 

SONIC Labs

Through SONIC Labs, we provide world class testing facilities and expertise, coupled with a programme of support to develop open network solutions. This allows vendors to thoroughly test and interrogate products and interoperability to refine and strengthen reliability to help make products market ready. Throughout 2024, we will also be addressing energy efficiency challenges through the new SONIC Labs Technology Access Programme. 

REASON

As a key partner in the University of Bristol-led REASON, Digital Catapult is playing a key role focusing on architecture R&D, with a high impact in terms of shaping the UK’s overall 6G architecture vision.

Find out more

To find out more about Digital Catapult’s work across the telecoms sector, visit our telecoms section.