Communications key topics
Addressing key topics within the communications sector.
Today communications are all pervasive. They are central to much of society’s lifestyle, education, wellbeing and security; the operation of industry, commerce, finance, and government; the functioning of the armed forces. The IET Communications Sector Panel has a remit to keep The IET up-to-date on trends in this fast changing sector.
The key trends in communications can be observed across multiple levels: techniques, components (technology), networks (systems), services, applications and content. At the lower levels innovation brings greater efficiency and lower costs, while at the higher levels it is focussed on revenue growth. Communications is not on its own a major component of a country’s GDP, but in an increasingly knowledge based economy, it has a large multiplier effect across business and society, much of which is intangible, or unmeasured, but central to business competitiveness and social cohesion. While communications has been undergoing a revolution in virtually every age, the current pace of change creates challenges for the industry and policy makers.
The major opportunities and challenges facing the sector are: -
- The huge opportunities that flow from the underlying technologies that continue to exhibit rapidly increasing performance and lowering costs.
- The need for robust, resilient communications networks as part of a critical national infrastructure.
- The transition from switched networks to all Internet Protocol (IP) networks (so called Next Generation Networks) will make great demands on investment and require the re-engineering of many traditional services.
- Increasing the speed of ‘access’, together with the speed of information input and retrieval. While many see an all-fibre access network (already installed in some countries) as the correct and inevitable goal, others think that the modern generation of Digital Subscriber Line technology will suffice for some years (e.g. ADSL2+, VDSL). In some geographies, radio based delivery is more economic.
- The increasing convergence and bundling of services, which is causing a breakdown of established markets (fixed, mobile, Internet Service Provider, Broadcast) and the emergence of strong competition multi-play ‘platforms’.
- The desire that services should be ‘anytime, anywhere’ and therefore capable of working seamlessly across differing technologies and platforms, both local and wide-area.
- Driving a greater take-up of web-based services by business and adapting to the opportunities presented by new types of web technology (e.g. Web 2.0, the Semantic Web etc). Huge opportunities exist in the health and transport sectors which require an inter-disciplinary approach.
- The continuing tensions in ICT flowing from the different cultural origins of its main players: the ‘Telcos’, the Internet, the Broadcasters and the IT industry; leading to differing opinions over the focus for policies on governance, competition and regulation.
- The globalisation nature of the industry where proprietary interests compete with industry standards, and where those standards are more likely to emerge from equipment vendors than service providers. Counter influences, such as open source software, are having a measurable impact.
- Better exploitation of radio frequency spectrum through adoption of digital techniques; better sharing of spectrum (e.g. ‘spectrum commons’ and more intelligent self-adapting systems); releasing military spectrum for civil use; and introducing a market based approach to spectrum allocation, including auctions and secondary trading.
- Addressing public concerns about unproven harmful effects due to low-level exposure to radio services.
- Preventing a ‘digital divide’, nationally and globally by making access to networks and services available and affordable, for all; and easy to use by all including the elderly, disabled and disadvantaged.
- Controlling the spread of content piracy through Digital Rights Management technology, or adopting business models that accept that this battle may be lost!
- Ensuring that users can trust the content and services they use, by addressing the integrity of networks, the security of services, the authentication of identities, the provenance of contents, the damaging effects of ‘spam’ and the spread of ‘malware’.
