The Guardian reported yesterday that several UK telecom executives said Britain could lose ground in the global AI race if its telecom infrastructure upgrades continue to lag behind those of other countries.
At this stage, AI infrastructure development is focused primarily on data centers. However, as AI becomes increasingly widespread, the UK’s broadband and mobile data networks will need to handle massive volumes of data traffic from consumers and businesses.
The UK was once widely criticized for having Europe’s slowest broadband speeds. This has improved as companies such as Openreach continue to deploy fiber-optic networks nationwide. The problem now is that the UK’s 5G upgrade pace has completely failed to keep up with the times.
According to a recent report from consumer rights organization Which?, the UK’s mobile network coverage lags behind not only all 27 EU member states, but also the G7 countries. The report shows that the UK ranks 57th globally for network performance and 70th for download speeds.
Andrea Donà, head of the VodafoneThree network division, said: “Considering the technology and services we use today, the network is not performing at its best. Imagine what will happen when AI is deployed at scale. To put it more bluntly, I am ashamed of the quality of the UK’s networks. Our people should be able to enjoy the high-quality services provided by operators such as EE and O2, but we need change.”
Another telecom executive said that AI and network connectivity are still in their early stages, but the situation could eventually become comparable to the problem of fiber deployment being too slow, ultimately affecting the UK’s competitiveness.