Home » Telecom Industry » Connected Britain summary (day 1)

Connected Britain summary (day 1)

First day of Connected Britain with great sessions, as expected. The virtual event brought us discussions with great panelists, that gave us very valuable information in what comes to the scenario of UK next steps in digitalization and Twoosk, shares with you the Connected Britain summary, from day 1. 

“5G will be the backbone of the UK’s economic recovery (…)” 

Christian Lean, VP and Head of Netwoks of Ericsson, brought us a brilliant presentation on “5G-enabler of UK success”, sharing that “5G will be the backbone of the UK’s economic recovery (…)”  and that it is “(…) a key component to deliver the Building Digital UK ambition (…)” 

Lean also shares that 5G is more needed than ever, since after the pandemics, we can see that countries with a high level of digitalisation faced the lockdown better than countries with lower levels of it. Also, at the end of the session, the VP and Head of Networks also shared that Ericsson is ready to support UK 5G deployment. 

Prioritization of health 

Next in Connected Britain summary, at “Fiber, 5G and the reinvention of the smart cities” session, all panelists agreed that prioritization of areas is needed and that due to the COVID-19 pandemics, more than ever the 5G roll outs should prioritize areas like health and businesses. 

“Accelerating the reinvention of the city” 

Still in smart cities theme and being also one of the main topics of the Britain virtual event this year, Dale Parkinson, Wholesale Sales Director at Virgin Media Business, gave us a session on “ Accelerating the reinvention of the city” starting by saying that actually  “Reinventing cities is nothing new (…)” and that to develop a smart city it mainly depends on the interplay between 4 elements: 

– 5G; 

– Fiber; 

– Software; 

– Hardware.  

However, there are big challenges on the way like the lack of funding, since 65% of local authorities can’t afford to digital transformation alone or the lack of reliable network security since just 26% of companies feel “verconfident” about the safety of their network. 

Parkinson continues and rhetorically asks in his session “Are we therefore now at a tipping point which will see the rapid acceleration of the deployment at scale of smart city solutions, right across the spectrum from utilities and city services all the way through to commerce and leisure?”. One year ago, he says that his answer would have been “not quite” but now, with the situation of the pandemics highlighting the need of improved infraestructure, smart cities will be essential. 

2025, a crucial deadline for “Connecting Britain”

ADTRAN’s CTO of the EMEA and APAC regions, Ronan Kelly, says that although COVID-19 had disrupted the plans of  the government “Connecting Britain”, the deadline is still achievable, with collaboration. Kelly also shares that it’s important to keep in mind the opportunities that the lockdown gave  in terms of digital infraestructure and that we need to focus in not going back to a disconnected scenario. 

Don’t miss Connected Britain and visit Twoosk booth, to know more about the online platform specialised in telecommunications, that is facilitating telecom professionals daily activities! 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *