With more business communication being done remotely than ever before, the need to provide fully reliable wireless connectivity with more ubiquitous coverage is escalating, says Paul Carter, and this all starts with improvements that need to be made today
Today’s businesses work in an increasingly wireless, mobile-driven economy. Any company – be they small high-street boutiques or large multinational firms – will have some form of wireless network-related aspect to their day-to-day business activities. For some, this network component will be fundamental to their core business activities – think everything from a point of sale terminal enabling a shop owner to receive mobile payments from customers, right up to the intricate, interlinked logistics and supply chain management platforms which power the world’s largest corporations, and everything in between.
But for many others across numerous different business sectors – from consultants to comms professionals, financial advisors to freelance artists – the vast majority of everyday connectivity requirements simply involves communicating with one another. This might be interacting with colleagues and clients or connecting with customers at home and abroad. What’s perhaps most striking about our ever-globalised economy is that this kind of communication is done more remotely and more ‘on-the-go’ than ever before.
What this means for the business professionals of the twenty first century is that stable, always available connectivity is key. While an e-mail not sending or a call dropping out is an annoyance for consumers, it can have truly damaging ‘bottom line’ consequences for a business, because in today’s day and age network downtime is quite often synonymous with business downtime. This is only exacerbated for early-stage businesses – the high-growth startups and SMEs that power a large proportion of the economy – where a dropped call with an investor could mean the difference between going big or going broke. The need to provide fully reliable wireless connectivity with more ubiquitous coverage is escalating, and for the companies of tomorrow, this all starts with improvements that need to be made today.
Connection expectations
So just how high are people’s expectations today when it comes to connectivity? Are there situations when you might have the patience to wait longer to connect? Well, not really. When people are at work, they expect to connect quickly, seamlessly, and without fail. That’s according to our recent survey of over 2,000 UK adults, which found that just 6% of people are prepared to wait longer than usual for connectivity while at work.
Additionally, when at home, only 15% of people have the patience to wait longer than usual for connectivity. With more people than ever enjoying flexible working policies and a steady increase in the number of people that use their home as their office, it’s little wonder that the vast majority still expect connectivity without having to wait, regardless of where their desk is.
What’s more, even in situations and settings which once might have been associated with poor connectivity, more people now expect reliable network connectivity. Over three quarters (76%) of UK adults get impatient if they have to wait longer than usual to connect when travelling by car and just over three fifths (62%) get impatient while on a train, where connectivity can be notoriously difficult. Again, this is perhaps unsurprising given people’s rising requirements to communicate and stay connected on the go, whether for work or other reasons.
Business requirements
Ultimately, the nature of today’s business operations means that businesses need to be confident of consistent and reliable connectivity wherever their employees happen to be, whatever they happen to be doing. Our past research has found that 76% of UK companies report that their business suffers as a result of receiving anything less than excellent mobile coverage.
Interestingly, GWS has consistently found through its extensive focus groups and polling that both business owners and their employees still find voice calling to be the most important function from their mobile experience. That’s in spite of the increasing prevalence of text and instant messaging in the workplace over the last few years, though the prioritisation of voice calling is perhaps understandable. Given the sensitive and confidential nature of conversations between businesses and their customers and clients – particularly when it comes to the ‘decision makers’ such as company founders or those at an executive level in larger organisations – it stands to reason that many would prefer to communicate directly (i.e. talk and have a discussion) rather than text messaging.
This points to the need for mobile operators to consider business requirements when it comes to setting up their networks. If businesses still heavily rely on phone calls, then the quality and availability of VoLTE (voice-over-LTE) and VoWiFi (voice-over-WiFi) still need to be an area of focus going forwards. Businesses know their future involves mobility, so it’s important for operators to stay on top of things and test and improve networks based on what matters most to enterprises today, so that they will be well supported into the future.
Next-generation connectivity
With the rollout of 5G, businesses have reason to feel a sense of excitement. The move to 5G in 2019 is an exciting prospect and will be especially important to businesses. From Vo5G (voice-over-5G) to faster data connections and lower latencies enabling things like quicker, more reliable file transfers, 5G will allow businesses to do more over a wireless connection than ever before. This means new and improved ways to engage with customers, better ways of marketing and delivering the services that they provide, as well as swifter and smoother management of internal communications and business processes.
However, the development of any new network is never an instantaneous process, and the rollout of 5G with its promise of ultrafast, super-reliable connectivity will be a more gradual shift towards these advanced capabilities. For some time, it will involve a ‘mesh’ of both next-generation and existing networks – 5G, 4G and 3G – all working together to deliver coverage to businesses. In fact, while the recent fanfare has been focused on 5G, operators have devoted much of their time in 2019 to bolstering existing infrastructure. This includes deploying new 4G sites, as well as turning on advanced LTE features to boost connectivity and coverage.
This is positive news for businesses, both now and in the future. While it’s hard to argue against the idea that next-generation networks drive infrastructure development and increase wireless communications capabilities, what’s also clear is that the route to ubiquitous 5G is not going to be without its challenges. Demand for 5G is certainly apparent, which in turn helps strengthen the financial case for investment in next-generation networks, but it’s important to not lose sight of the improvements that operators can make to today’s networks, to benefit today’s businesses as well as pave the way for the networks and business connectivity requirements of tomorrow.
Dr Paul Carter is CEO of Global Wireless Solutions
