2020 - A view on telecommunications this coming decade

So we find ourselves in a new decade. 2019, came and went as quickly as it started. With it saw the end of 10's, the second decade of the new (can we still call that?) millennium and some rather large announcements in the Telecoms industry.

First of all, reflection on the last decade is probably a good place to start. Working in Telecoms for the entire decade, I feel it became a bit commoditised with many companies looking to realise savings from new internet connections or moving their voice services to another provide. A slightly short sighted view when for the same investment efficiences across the rest of the business could potentially be unlocked. That said, the decade saw the cost of Leased Line Internet services drop with many being able to benefit from 100Mbps and upwards connections for the same price in many instances of previous 10Mbps services. The Internet becoming an essential part for any business with the move to Cloud based services.

From a consumer perspective, the Fibre Broadband rollout gained pace with 96% of the UK now being able to access internet speeds in excess of 24Mbps download (you can see the Openreach stats here). That's all good with streaming services now becoming the norm (look at the Premier league over Christmas on both Amazon Prime and BT Sport - all available on line, many simultaneously.).

At the time of writing, I haven't seen the ISP stats for the Boxing and New Years day Premier League fest although the earlier fixtures were said to be watched by "millions" - (link to the Guardian article here). Maybe we are becoming more reliant on our internet than we are on our aerial or satellite dishes for our entertainment. Making this new decade even more exciting. Personally, I feel the Christmas period saw me utilise streaming services like never before. Two series were 'binged' (via Sky and Amazon Prime) with as much Premier League football as I was allowed. Even my youngest loved the idea of watching TV in their playroom on iPlayer and Sky Go. Are we changing our viewing habits? Are traditional mainstream delivery models seeing the beginning of the end?

Anyhow, onto the new decade, and why do I think it is so exciting? Well, refer to the earlier comments about how we are using the internet is changing makes this decade exciting. In our work lives we are now seeing a migration to businesses adopting a cloud first approach utilising services like Office 365, Google, Salesforce and mine own personal favourite, hosted voice services. All of which needs great telecommunications infrastructure.

In the last four years we at TSG have seen our Hosted Voice offering go from strength to strength, gaining Platinum status with our partner, Gamma. Businesses are seeing a change in how they want to consume their voice services. Typically looking to remove the need for physical equipment (in the form of a PBX/System - not been able to move completely to a softphone environment YET!) and benefit from the advantages a Hosted Voice platform provides, namely: -

• Disaster Recovery capabilities - Traditionally only capable in dispersed organisations with a lot of money to spend
• Flexibility - giving staff the ability to work from any location whilst still being part of the corporate system
• Ready for the ISDN Switch off - More on this later
• Savings - through consolidation, reduced call spend and typically a low capital expenditure to get a new system

Many customers are seeing the benefits with many replacing legacy systems some of which are older than this millennium and the rate of change in the Hosted Voice market hit a new gear last year with the announcement from Microsoft about voice services coming to their Teams platform, provided to SME's via Office 365 (news on the release can be found here).

One of the professional highlights of mine last year was being involved with Microsoft and selected resellers throughout the UK in mapping out what we need from Microsoft Business Voice here in the UK. Utilising the technology and watching some of the Microsoft Ignite sessions, what they have planned could revolutionise how we approach voice services here in the UK. If you add to this the perfect storm of the death of ISDN in 2025 and many users already utilising Office 365, the next decade could see Teams providing an entry to Hosted Voice services to the many as part of their existing subscription (all be it for a little more per month). As more announcements are made, I'll aim to post them here or on the TSG Blog.

Thinking of voice services, I have seen some interesting early forays in to integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) into Call Centre environments and I can see this playing a huge part during the next decade in providing efficiencies to call flow and improving customer service. Imagine being able to be presented with all the information required by your device without having to type?

So what else does this decade hold? Well I mentioned it earlier, Openreach have announced the end of analogue and ISDN voice services this decade with the aim being 2025. This will see the way in which we all consume our voice services change. It also means those business clinging on to the ageing traditional systems because "they don't cost anything to run" will find that they need to upgrade or risk loosing their voice.

From a consumer point of view, it will also see a change to how we are provided Broadband. For many we will still require the Copper cable, but this will be more for the provision of the broadband, not voice services.

As the networks are upgrade, Openreach have now adopted a Fibre First approach. In short, any new buildings or upgrades that they carry out will see Superfast Fibre (Fibre to the Premise (FTTP)) deployed instead of the FTTC technology of the last decade. This will provide speeds of up to 1Gbps. Just imagine the streaming on that... 8K anyone??

The introduction of Microsoft into the Hosted Voice arena for the SME market in the UK will see others evolve and their products change and differentiate. We are already seeing this with Gamma's introduction of the Mobile Convergence offering (Gamma Connect), giving you phone system functionality on your mobile phone without the need for a softphone (I ran a few webinars on this last year, drop me a line if you want to learn a little more). This technology is great for any business who has a very mobile workforce.

We haven't even spoken about 5G begin rolled out nationally (and internationally) and what that will mean from not only a business or consumer point of view, but also from an Internet of Things and AI perspective. I never imagined being able to watch live TV from the middle of a forest on my mobile phone. It was back in the 20th century you were lucky to get a decent connection for a voice call.

Hopefully this gives you an insight to why I think the 20's will be exciting for the telecommunications industry and how businesses can benefit from the developments forthcoming. I'll look to provide updates throughout the year and the decade. But in the words of a former great mobile network... "The Future is Bright...."