A report last month from analysts at Assembly Research showed how the UK was cheaper than most other countries for broadband and mobile.
Mobile data usage per UK consumer trebled in the five years to 2021 and is more than the average in the US, France, Spain, Germany, Italy and Japan. At the same time, the monthly price of a five- gigabit data allowance in the UK has fallen 36 per cent since 2017 to £7.30, according to Assembly. That is only more expensive than Spain of the countries included in the report. The same is true for broadband. The average monthly price for the UK’s most popular broadband speeds (30-100 megabits per second) has fallen by more than 20 per cent to below £20. Of the countries on the list, only Germany is cheaper.
Facebook’s message to regulators
Analysts say Facebook’s actions in Australia are designed to send regulators worldwide a clear message: don’t touch the business model.
“It’s a conflict that is playing out in different ways, across multiple countries and I think what Facebook is doing is flexing its muscles, not only in Australia but also showing the rest of the world that it is prepared to take extreme measures if it's business model is threatened,” says Luca Schiavoni, Senior Analyst at Assembly Research.
“The message is: regulate us on things like privacy but please do not disrupt key elements of our business model”.
Italian broadband monopoly
After decades of efforts to open up the market, Italy is the only example of a country backing off,” said Luca Schiavoni, a telecoms analyst at Assembly, a regulatory research firm in London. TIM — formerly a public company — held a monopoly over Italy’s telecommunication infrastructure for many years until new players entered the market. When TIM was a monopolist, telecom operators often blamed it for hindering access to the network, the analyst noted, adding that regulators should impose remedies and strict conditions “to avoid the mistakes of the past.”
There’s no reason to believe that a single operator would bring any efficiency from a technical point of view, noted Schiavoni, the analyst at Assembly, arguing that the government decided to step in to ensure that the infrastructure doesn’t fall into the hands of foreign investors.
Huawei decision 'may delay 5G by three years and cost UK £7bn'
Matthew Howett, the founder of the research firm Assembly, said: “Mobile phone operators have so far cherry-picked the major urban areas to deploy 5G, but changing the rules now will mean delays for the rest of the country.”
Previous research conducted by Assembly on behalf of the telecoms firms BT, Vodafone, O2 and Three, concluded the UK would suffer an economic hit of £6.8bn from not deploying 5G and risk falling behind continental Europe.
“We also thought it would set the UK back 18 to 24 months, but Dowden went further and said it would be three years,” Howett said. “Anywhere where coverage is already poor is now going to have to wait longer.”
Three million homes have access to full-fibre broadband
"As end-of-term report cards go, this is probably about as good as you can hope for," said Matthew Howett, founder of Assembly Research.
"The leap in the availability of full-fibre shows just how serious operators are in making up for lost time and how, with the right regulatory and political environment, they can go even further.
"Next year will be crucial for determining what that pace of rollout looks like as Ofcom is due to set out the rules for how such networks will be regulated for the next five years."
Free Internet Is Proposed in Britain. Is It Even Possible?
A Labour Party plan to provide government-sponsored broadband service has raised questions about how it would work, and who would pay for it.
No other country provides free government-run broadband service, said Matthew Howett, the founder and principal analyst at Assembly Research, a firm that studies telecommunications.
The prospects of several other companies that compete with Openreach and have pledged billions in investment for their own initiatives would be thrown into doubt after the debut of a free government-run service.
“They all would disappear,” Mr. Howett said. “There is no way consumers are going to be paying them if they can get it for free from the government.”
“Superfast is good enough for today,” Mr. Howett said. “But it’s not going to be good enough for the world we’re entering in the 2020s and 2030s.”
Worklife – The Papers
Virgin switches on 'gigabit' network to meet Boris Johnson broadband demands
Matthew Howett, an analyst at Assembly, said the Government's new pledge “will play well into Virgin's hands given their mix of technologies”.
He added: “The only way Boris’s 2025 target for nationwide full fibre coverage had the slimest chance of success was for it to be fudged to include Virgin’s network.”
White House invites Big Tech to summit over extremism
Broadband chiefs fire back at PM's full-fibre internet pledge
Broadband chiefs fire back at PM's full-fibre internet pledge
U.K. Defers Huawei 5G Decision, Seeks Clarity on U.S. Export Ban
Huawei Vice President Victor Zhang said in a statement Monday evening that the government review “gives us confidence that we can continue to work with network operators to roll out 5G across the U.K.”
Based on discussions with three of the U.K.’s four carriers, analyst firm Assembly estimated in April that restrictions on the use of Huawei could delay the 5G roll-out by between 18 and 24 months, resulting in a 4.5 billion pounds ($5.6 billion) to 6.8 billion pound hit to the U.K. economy.
TalkTalk Q1 2019 Trading Update
UK mobile operators ignore security fears over Huawei 5G
The consultancy Assembly suggests a partial to full restriction on Huawei could result in an 18-to-24-month delay to the widespread availability of 5G in the UK. The UK would then fail to become a world leader in 5G – a key government target – costing the economy between £4.5bn and £6.8bn.
“If we had banned Huawei and everyone was just using Ericsson, we would have had a day without any mobile coverage on any network – not a good position to be in,” said Matthew Howett at Assembly.
“There is the whole debate about where the core and access network are delineated,” said Howett. “But the reality is that the operators are all using Huawei to an extent – they are quite happy with it. The government has huge ambitions for what 5G can deliver to the economy, and a bad decision based on politics could seriously stop that from being a reality.”
UK can't make up its mind on tech
"They really need to attract investment funds to make sure the tech sector keeps growing," said Luca Schiavoni, a digital regulation analysts at Assembly Research, a consultancy firm in London. "But at the same time, it's really difficult to run into someone in Westminster who believes the tech sector doesn't need more regulation."
UK decision on Huawei 5G faces fresh delay
EE to launch UK's first 5G service in May
Matthew Howett, a mobile analyst with research firm Assembly, said: "To convince consumers to make the leap from 4G to 5G, it's important to communicate that it's more than just about speed.
"While peak download speeds will be faster, crucially there will be more capacity, which will allow for a whole host of new applications and services."
US and South Korea launch 5G
Brussels unveils EU-wide plan to address 5G security risks
But the slow rate of EU progress clashes with the speed at which 5G is being tested and rolled out by the largest telecoms companies across the continent. Matthew Howett, founder of research company Assembly, said: “You can understand why they want a common framework but working to that timescale is risible. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Mr Howett said that the impending report by the UK government into telecoms infrastructure and its view of Huawei’s involvement would be likely to prompt more action from member states and that the slow pace of the plan belied the commission’s previous view that Europe needs to push ahead rapidly with 5G deployment. “We are in a global race to launch this technology. This timescale is incompatible with the EU’s other objective to be a leader in 5G,” he said.
Broadband speed must be revealed to customers
Ofcom is at the centre of a campaign to persuade users to upgrade to faster broadband as well as reviewing broadband firms' pricing practices and ensuring customers get the best available deals.
According to the regulator's research, those with a basic broadband connection have less than a one-in-five chance of being able to stream Netflix in ultra-high definition.
Matthew Howett, founder of research firm Assembly, said the new code could act "as an incentive for broadband providers to move customers on to full-fibre connections, since speeds in the fibre network are easier to guarantee and less susceptible to network congestion".
