With the largest mobile market in Europe that has an annual value of £14 billion, the UK has 80 million subscribers. This means that companies are always looking for new technological opportunities.
Communications in the Thames Valley
Three of the world’s top-10 communication giants call the Thames Valley home, including Telefónica O2, Verizon and Vodafone (the first cellular network to launch in the country) – whose UK headquarters are respectively based in Slough, Reading and Newbury.
They are at the pinnacle of a dynamic cluster of businesses and are joined by other famous brands located in-region, including BT; Ericsson; Huawei; Hutchinson 3 Mobile; Siemens and Virgin Media. Overall estimates indicate that there are around 1,000 telecom-related businesses operating in the region – making the Thames Valley home to one of the deepest clusters of telecom-based business in the UK.
Centres of Excellence
• 5G Step-Out Centre, Westcott, in Buckinghamshire – an open and accessible centre and development facility that provides convergent multi-access terrestrial and satellite radio network with international standards based network infrastructure.
• 5G Innovation Centre, located at the University of Surrey – the UK’s only research centre dedicated to the next generation of mobile communications.
• The internet of things and open innovation through industry collaboration is showcased at the Vodafone-Huawei “Open IoT Lab”, which works on the development of products and applications relating to Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT).
