Managed.IT - issue 53

BULLETIN 6 MANAGED.IT 01732 759725 More education needed to maximise economic benefits of 5G says Barclays 5G mobile communications could supercharge the UK economy by up to £15.7bn per year by 2025, according to the most optimistic scenario (rapid roll-out/ enhanced uptake) outlined in a new report from Barclays Corporate Banking. Even at today’s rate of progress, 5G: A Transformative Technology states that the UK economy might receive a boost of £13 billion, as peak data rates 20 times faster than 4G and simultaneous connections for one million devices per square kilometre drive innovations in artificial intelligence, robotics and the Internet of Things (IoT). The sectors with the most potential for growth are distribution (£3.6bn), manufacturing (£2bn), professional services (£1.1bn) and business services (£1bn). These benefits are not guaranteed, and the report warns that a slower than anticipated roll-out and lower 5G take-up by consumers and businesses could limit the economic benefit to £8.3bn of added revenue. Sean Duffy, Head of TMT at Barclays, says it is concerning that just 39% of decision- makers know how their business can make the most of 5G and that only 15% of the 526 businesses surveyed are currently thinking about how they can harness the technology. He said: “The Government, mobile operators and other corporate partners have a job to do to raise awareness amongst businesses. This support is crucial for businesses to make smart investments that will unlock the power of 5G.” Mobile providers are starting to introduce 5G capabilities on a large scale, with pilots underway in London, the Midlands, Edinburgh and Belfast. Vodafone, for example, has started its roll-out of 5G to UK airports and railways, with 5G trials at Manchester airport (see caption) and Birmingham New Street railway station. www.barclays.com bulletin IoT adopters welcome 5G One of the areas that has most to benefit from the introduction of 5G is the Internet of Things (IoT), thanks to the technology’s higher data volumes, greater reliability and near-zero latency. More than half (52%) of IoT adopters surveyed for Vodafone’s sixth Internet of Things Barometer said they plan to use 5G, along with mobile edge computing, which processes application traffic closer to the network edge, to achieve better performance and faster data speeds. One third (34%) of businesses in the automotive, healthcare, financial services and transport and logistics sectors already use IoT, of which 70% have moved beyond the pilot stage. Almost all adopters (95%) say they have seen benefits from their investment in IoT, with 83% enlarging the scale of their deployments and 76% describing them as mission-critical. Sixty per cent believe that IoT has already completely disrupted their industry or will do so in the next five years. Three quarters (74%) warn that that non-adopters will have fallen behind their rivals within five years. Michele Mackenzie, Principal Analyst at Analysys Mason, said: “The Barometer makes it clear that businesses are increasing their investment in IoT as they gain confidence and begin to develop more advanced solutions. In the short-term, users of IoT will continue to access reduced costs and improved efficiency, but increasingly ambitious projects will offer the opportunity to change business models.” Vodafone is the global leader in IoT with 80.9 million connections. As part of a 5G pilot at Manchester airport – the UK’s first 5G-connected airport – Vodafone was giving visitors to its 5G ‘blast pod’ a free Entertainment Pass for streaming service NOW TV. Using a 5G-enabled portable router (the Gigacube), they were able to download an episode of Tin Star in 45 seconds and the whole series in six minutes and seven seconds, compared to 26 minutes and eight seconds using 4G. Boost for Azure UK compute capacity To help organisations continue their migration to the cloud, Microsoft is more than doubling the size of its Azure regions in the UK with the launch of Azure Availability Zones. With this new investment, Microsoft has now increased the compute capacity in UK Azure regions by more than 1,500% since they were brought online in 2016. An Azure region is defined as an area containing at least one Microsoft data centre. Out of 54 Azure regions globally, there are two in the UK – South and West – which host data for tens of thousands of Microsoft cloud services customers across the UK. Availability Zones, now introduced to the UK South, are separate, physical locations within an Azure region that give users added protection from potential hardware and software failures. For anyone using two or more Availability Zones in the same Azure region, Microsoft guarantees Virtual Machine connectivity to at least one instance 99.99% of the time. Cost of cyber-attacks rising The average annual cost of a successful cyber-attack has risen by more than 70% in the last 12 months, with 32% of UK businesses affected, warns progressive technology provider Evaris. Its analysis of findings from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport’s annual Cyber Security Breaches Survey reveals that the average annual cost for a business that has lost data in a cyber breach has risen to £4,180, from £2,450 in 2017-2018. Mike Cohen, CEO at Evaris, said: “These figures are substantial for any business, but, in our experience, companies will undervalue the true cost, meaning it could be much higher. Indirect costs, long-term costs and intangible costs of breaches, such as loss of productivity and reputational damage, are often overlooked.” www.evaris.com E-invoicing delivers 30% carbon saving Organisations that switch from paper-based invoicing to paperless e-invoicing can cut their carbon emissions by more than 30%. So says Basware, the global leader in networked source-to-pay solutions and e-invoicing. Its analysis shows that while reducing printing, distribution and paper manufacturing requirements does lower the carbon impact, most savings in emissions derive from greater efficiency of invoice handling, which, it says, can reduce electricity and computing costs. In other respects, emissions generated by computing are not a big differentiator, as most paper- based systems today involve scanning and handling by computers. www.basware.com

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