With many UK businesses prioritising digitalisation, strong network connectivity is becoming a key driver of the UK economy, which is why the UK Government is investing £40 million to extend 5G coverage across all densely populated areas of the country by 2030.
Reliable network connectivity is of paramount importance to small and medium-sized businesses, whose low profit margins mean that even a minute of downtime can result in significant revenue loss and undermine profitability.
Small businesses make up 99.9% of the UK’s private sector, with over 5.6 million businesses operating, but they are struggling with the pressures of rising interest rates, energy costs and wages in the wake of the pandemic and energy crisis. A PayPal survey published in May 2024 revealed that 64% of small businesses have not expanded their business in the past three years.
Faster, more stable, and more secure 5G connectivity could provide a lifeline to small businesses, for example by enabling them to take advantage of IoT technologies that increase productivity and reduce waste. It could also improve communication between remote workers and make payment systems more reliable, ultimately opening up opportunities for business expansion.
TechRepublic spoke to UK telecoms experts to find out how small businesses can continue to thrive during the transition between the demise of 3G and the rollout of 5G, and make the most of the new connectivity.
How can UK small businesses prepare for 5G?
Create a technology roadmap
Claire Harris, head of SME and enterprise business at Vodafone UK, said creating a “technology roadmap” would help small businesses make the most of 5G coverage when it expands to their areas.
She told TechRepublic: “Work with your digital partners to consider how 5G can help you overcome business challenges, such as improving customer communications. Review your current business operations and consider how they need to adapt to enable 5G technology.”
“To realise our digital ambitions, it is important to have a clear annual plan with specific milestones for the technologies we want to upgrade to 5G-ready.”
Make sure your infrastructure is 5G ready
Chris Sims, BT Group’s managing director of small business, added that part of this plan will require businesses to check whether their existing infrastructure is 5G ready. “5G will be up to 10 times faster than 4G, but it may not be compatible with older devices, so it’s important to ensure that business-critical infrastructure, such as phones and tablets, are ‘5G ready.'” Sims said in an email to TechRepublic.
“If you’ve already invested in 5G-enabled devices but your business is in an area that doesn’t yet have 5G coverage, don’t worry – your devices will still work on 4G and will automatically switch over to the new system as coverage expands.”
See how 5G will impact your customers
It’s important to remember that customers will also be affected by the 5G rollout: they’ll want to make the most of connectivity when they have access, so their digital devices will need to be 5G-enabled.
“If small and medium-sized businesses sell products that require connectivity, they may need to replace or upgrade their legacy products so they can connect to 5G services rather than legacy 3G or Wi-Fi,” Sam Jackman, chief development officer at mobile connectivity provider Shared Access, told TechRepublic in an email.
If small businesses are considering updating their services to take advantage of 5G, they should notify customers up front. “It’s essential to be clear about whether costs will change based on your new 5G services and communicate this information before customers receive increased bills,” Jackman says.
Check your contracts with network operators and other services
“All mobile network operators may say they offer 5G, but some may offer faster speeds and better coverage than others,” Jackman told TechRepublic.
“It’s important to make sure your mobile data plan covers all of your necessary usage,” Harris added.
If 5G hasn’t yet extended to your small business’s area, you can consider switching to a carrier that will be among the first to do so, or that offers better 4G coverage in the meantime. “It’s very likely you’ll be able to modify your existing contract to take advantage of other services offered by the same mobile network operator,” Jackman added.
“Services like RootMetrics publish data on which MNOs have the best speeds and coverage areas across the country.”
Additionally, Jackman said it’s important to consider whether services your small business relies on, such as phone or payment systems, are 5G-enabled: “Make sure that any contracts that your small business uses include 5G, or they won’t be able to take advantage of 5G services,” he told TechRepublic.
Consider private 5G networks
If an area is unlikely to have 5G for a long time, or 5G connectivity is poor, small businesses can consider building a private 5G network.
“[Private 5G networks]would require territories to agree with regulator Ofcom to deploy specific regional portions of spectrum bands for specific use cases,” Jackman told TechRepublic. “This would remove the threat of zero coverage, zero capacity scenarios.”
Read also: Ericsson helps Nestle deploy first private 5G network in Latin America
Richard Foggie, knowledge transfer manager for digital economy and internet of things at Innovate UK Business Connect, said private 5G networks would typically be built in “real estate-based” locations such as ports, logistics centres, stadiums, transport hubs and campuses, and would serve a range of use cases.
“With standalone 5G, you can use all the capabilities of 5G networks, such as slicing and multi-access edge computing, to fine-tune your data architecture to your operations,” he told TechRepublic. “Check to see if your location or park has an ‘anchor tenant’ or consider becoming one.”
When will 5G be rolled out nationwide?
In April 2023, the government revealed a goal of investing £40 million to extend 5G coverage to all densely populated areas of the UK by 2030. Vodafone contributed to this target by promising to provide 5G to 95% of the population by 2030 in order to “close the digital divide” between urban and rural areas.
See also: 4G ‘unlikely’ to expand to 95% of UK by end of 2025
The first commercial 5G networks went live in London, Edinburgh, Belfast, Cardiff, Birmingham and Manchester in 2019. Since then, “non-standalone” networks utilising legacy 4G equipment have been built across the country. Faster and more secure “standalone” 5G infrastructure has so far only been live in the UK by Vodafone and Virgin Media O2.
Ofcom estimates that as of 2023, between 85% and 93% of premises in the UK will have 5G available outdoors from at least one operator.
Why is 5G important for small businesses?
2G and 3G networks are turned off
The availability of 5G should be a priority for small businesses for a variety of reasons, including the fact that alternative 3G and 2G networks have been shut down.
All major telecommunications operators have confirmed to the government that they will phase out 3G by 2033. Vodafone and BT (EE) have already phased out 3G, while Three and O2 plan to do so by the end of this year and 2025 respectively. Phased out 3G will free up radio spectrum which can be reused for faster and more reliable 4G and 5G networks. These services will also be more energy efficient, helping to reduce operational costs and power consumption.
This puts further pressure on the nationwide 5G and 4G rollout as businesses still relying on these signals could be left without connectivity. According to data from communications regulator Ofcom, there will still be around 2.4 million devices relying on 2G or 3G networks at the end of 2023, although 3G accounts for just 3% of network data traffic.
5G will lead to increased productivity
Vodafone research has found that UK SMEs are missing out on annual savings of up to £8.6bn in productivity gains due to the government’s slow rollout of standalone 5G, as a lack of “connectivity and digital competitiveness” that reliable 5G brings is preventing SMEs from expanding.
5G will improve business productivity in many ways, including:
- Real-time data monitoring with IoT devices and sensors optimized for 5G networks. Such devices enable predictive maintenance to prevent downtime and increase efficiency by providing visibility into production schedules, reducing waste of both time and materials.
- Speed up communication for remote workers. For a diverse workforce communicating via email, instant messenger and video calling, 5G can provide a reliable alternative to broadband with fewer interruptions.
- Reliable payment systems and other services that require a constant connection. 5G offers a robust alternative connectivity mode, reducing revenue loss due to downtime.
Rural and remote businesses desperately need connectivity
According to a Vodafone study published in November 2023, 46% of deprived areas have no 5G coverage, while in deprived urban areas the figure is 2.7%. Furthermore, a report by the Federation of Small Businesses found that 47% of rural SMEs have unreliable data connections. Small businesses in remote areas will therefore benefit greatly from 5G networks.
As 5G expands to rural areas, more companies could use IoT devices for farming, such as monitoring soil, weather, and equipment. According to Vodafone, the average farmer could save more than three weeks of time using 5G technology, and the agricultural sector as a whole could save £112 million a year through increased productivity.
