Telecommunications in the United Kingdom
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Until 1982, the
main civil telecommunications system in the UK was a state monopoly known
(since reorganisation in 1969) as Post Office Telecommunications. Broadcasting
of radio and television was a duopoly of the BBC and Independent Broadcasting
Authority (IBA): these two organisations controlled all broadcast services, and
directly owned and operated the broadcast transmitter sites. Mobile phone and
Internet services did not then exist.
National
Telephone Company [(NTC) was a British telephone company from 1881 until 1911
which brought together smaller local companies in the early years of the
telephone. Under the Telephone Transfer Act 1911 it was taken over by the
General Post Office (GPO) in 1912.
British Rail
Telecommunications was created by British Rail (BR). It was the largest private
telecoms network in Britain, consisting of 17,000 route kilometres of fibre
optic and copper cable which connected every major city and town in the country
and provided links to continental Europe through the Channel Tunnel.
BR also operated
its own national trunked radio network providing dedicated train-to-shore
mobile communications, and in the early 1980s BR helped establish Mercury
Communications’, now C&WC, core infrastructure by laying a resilient
‘figure-of-eight’ fibre optic network alongside Britain’s railway lines,
spanning London, Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester.
The civil telecomms monopoly ended
when Mercury Communications arrived in 1983. The Post Office system evolved
into British Telecom and was privatised in 1984.
Broadcast transmitters, which
belonged to the BBC and IBA, were privatised during the 1990s and now belong to
Babcock International and Arqiva.
Regulation of
communications has changed many times during the same period, and most of the
bodies have been merged into Ofcom, the independent regulator and competition
authority for the UK communications industries.
Infrastructure
Domestic trunk infrastructure
All
communications trunks are now digital. Most are carried via national optical
fibre networks. There are several companies with national fibre networks,
including BT, Level 3 Communications, Virgin Media, Cable & Wireless,
Easynet and Thus. Microwave links are used up to the 155 Mbit/s level, but are
seldom cost-effective at higher bit rates.
International trunks
The UK is a
focal point for many of the world's submarine communications cables, which are
now mostly digital optical fibre cables. There are many satellite links too,
but these now provide a relatively small part of the international bandwidth.
Broadcast transmission
Most
broadcasting organisations, BBC and commercial, lease transmission facilities
from one or more of the transmission companies. The main exception is the
smaller local radio stations, some of which find it more cost-effective to
provide their own.
Fixed phone lines
BT is still the
main provider of fixed telephones lines, both POTS and ISDN, and it has a
universal service obligation, although companies can now contract Openreach to
install a phoneline on their behalf, rather than telling the customer to get BT
to install it, then transfer over.
Virgin Media is the second biggest player in the residential
telephone line market.
Other companies provide fixed telephone lines too, but
mainly to large companies in the major cities.
There are many other providers who sell fixed telephone
services carried over BT lines. They have no network infrastructure of their
own.
Mobile phone networks
First generation networks
- Cellnet was originally jointly owned by British Telecom and Securicor. BT eventually bought out Securicor's stake. The network became BT Cellnet and was then demerged to become O
- Vodafone
Both companies ran ETACS analogue mobile phone networks.
First and second generation networks
- O2 - runs a GSM-900 network. Now owned by Telefónica.
- Vodafone - runs a GSM-900 network.
- Everything Everywhere - runs a GSM-1800 network. Formerly this was two separate companies: Orange and T-Mobile, which was originally called One-2-One.
Third generation networks
The four 2G
companies all won 3G licences in a competitive auction, as did new entrant
known as Hutchison 3G, which branded its network as 3. They have now rolled out
their networks. Hutchinson 3G does not operate a 2G network, but has an
agreement with Orange whereby customers who lose a 3G signal roam with Orange.
They previously had an agreement with O2 to provide the same service.
The third
generation stems from technological improvements and is in essence an
improvement of the available bandwidth, enabling new services to be provided to
customers. Such services include streaming of live radio or video, video calls
and live TV.
Fourth generation networks
Long-term
evolution (LTE) services are currently being rolled out. Everything Everywhere
launched their EE network in September 2012, using part of their existing 1800
MHz spectrum. O2 and Vodafone will use the 800 MHz and 2600 MHz bands for their
services, expected to launch in early 2013. 3 will provide LTE from September
2013 after it was allowed to use part of EE's 1800 MHz spectrum.
Services
Telephones
Fixed telephones
In the UK, there were 35 million (2002) main line
telephones.
The telephone
service in the United Kingdom was originally provided by private companies and
local city councils, but by 1912–1 all except the telephone service of Kingston
upon Hull, Yorkshire and Guernsey had been bought out by the General Post
Office. Post Office Telephones also operated telephone services in Jersey and
the Isle of Man until 1969 when the islands took over responsibility for their
own postal and telephone services.
Post Office
Telephones was reorganised in 1980–81 as British Telecommunications (British
Telecom, or BT), and was the first nationalised industry to be privatised by
the Conservative government. The Hull Telephone Department was itself sold by
Hull City Council as Kingston Communications in the late 1990s and celebrated
its centenary in 2004.
Mobile telephones
There are more
mobile phones than people in the UK. As of 2011 there were 82 million
subscriptions in the UK. There were 76 million in 2008 and 55 million in
January 2005.
Each of the main
network operators sells mobile phone services to the public. In addition,
companies such as Virgin Mobile UK and Tesco Mobile act as mobile virtual
network operators, using the infrastructure of other companies.
Numbering
Main article: Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom
There is a set
numbering plan for phone numbers within the United Kingdom, which is regulated
by the Office of Communications (Ofcom), which replaced the Office of
Telecommunications (Oftel) in 2003. Each number consists of an area code—one
for each of the large towns and cities and their surroundings—and a subscriber
number—the individual number.
Television and radio broadcasting
Radio
Main article: Radio in the United Kingdom
As of 1998,
there were 663 radio broadcast stations: 219 on AM, 431 on FM and 3 on
shortwave. There were 84.5 million radio receiver sets (1997). Today there are
around 600 licensed radio stations in the UK.
Television
Main article: Television in the United Kingdom
As of 1997, there were 30.5 million households with
television sets.
There are five
major analogue networks - BBC One, BBC Two, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. Other
networks include BSkyB, who are the main provider of satellite television in
the UK and UKTV. The major cable television company is Virgin Media, and the
digital terrestrial television company Freeview. Analogue terrestrial
transmissions are currently being switched off and this is due to be completed
in 2012.
Internet
The country code
top-level domain for United Kingdom web pages is .uk. Nominet UK is the .uk.
Network Information Centre and second-level domains must be used.[jargon]
At the end of
2004, 52% of households (12.6 million) were reported to have access to the
internet (Source: Office for National Statistics Omnibus Survey). broadband
connections accounted for 50.7% of all internet connections in July 2005, with
one broadband connection being created every ten seconds.[Broadband connections
grew by nearly 80% in 2004. In 1999, there were 364 Internet Service Providers
(ISPs). Public libraries also provide access to the internet, sometimes for a
fee.
Largest urban areas of the United Kingdom
Greater London Urban Area, Greater Manchester Urban Area,
Greater Manchester Urban Area, West Yorkshire Urban Area, West Midlands Urban
Area , Greater Manchester Urban Area Manchester , Portsmouth Urban Area, West
Yorkshire Urban Area , Leicester Urban Area, Tyneside , South East Dorset
conurbation, Liverpool Urban Area , Reading/Wokingham Urban, Nottingham Urban
Area, Teesside , Sheffield Urban Area, The Potteries Urban Area, Belfast
Metropolitan Urban Area , Coventry/Bedworth Urban Area.
Please send us inquiry by filling up the form below if you wish one of
our sales team to contact and provide you more information.
