back to article UK comms revenues reach all-time low of £54.7bn, as internet kills the TV star

Communications revenues in the UK reached their lowest point in 2017, falling 2.1 per cent to £54.7bn, while people are ditching calls and texts for over-the-top messaging, according to Ofcom. In its annual state of the communications market report, the comms regulator said that the decline was due to contracting TV revenues, …

  1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    Superfast broadband connections in the UK rose…

    Please always qualify what superfast is supposed to mean.

    1. My-Handle

      superfast

      In this case, superfast is faster than fast (which is standard), as opposed to the internet connection that I have which is standard (i.e. fecking slow). Hope that clears things up :)

      Treating things seriously for a minute, the gov (in the first result I found on Google, so take that with a pinch of salt) defines superfast as a download speed exceeding 24 mbps. Other Google hits centre around the 25 to 30 mbps region. What you and I would call "normal" speed.

      1. Captain Hogwash

        Re: superfast as a download speed exceeding 24 mbps

        24 millibits per second? Blimey that is slow.

        1. My-Handle

          Re: superfast as a download speed exceeding 24 mbps

          @CaptainHogwash

          I'm a VB developer :)

    2. Crisp

      Re: Please always qualify what superfast is supposed to mean

      Anything over 9600 baud apparently.

  2. Captain Hogwash
    Coat

    Re: beating off Microsoft

    Must have been difficult.

    1. WolfFan Silver badge
      Paris Hilton

      Re: beating off Microsoft

      It's micro and soft. Needs Viagra before you even start.

      Paris is getting her jewler's loupe to search for it...

      1. quxinot
        Paris Hilton

        Re: beating off Microsoft

        Paris needs a jewler's loupe to prevent ocular mishaps in case of sucess, you mean.

  3. pɹɐʍoɔ snoɯʎuouɐ
    Coat

    time for a new song...

    the very first song played on MTV in the uk was "video killed the radio" star by Buggles... time for a rewrite of that song to "internet killed the telephone call" ....

    now where did i put that sony walkman....

    1. EnviableOne

      Re: time for a new song...

      iPod (or mp3 for those not apple fanbois) killed the walkman years back ....

      I've said for a few years (since LTE came out) if BT/OR dont get their act together and start offering something decent, Mobile will Kill Fixed line for data.

      LTE-A is generally capable of 100Mbps Symetric and with static endpoitns can hit 1Gbps.

      making it 4 times the Ofcom "SuperFast" tag does that make it Ultra fast, or should we rename 24Mbps SuperSlow? VDSL2+ wave 2(78Mbps/20Mbps) might qualift as not slow

      DOCSIS 3.0 (by Virgin Media) at 300Mbps might even qualify as fast, but for super fast, your looking at atleast 1Gbps and upto 10Gbps IMHO, which means FTTP or DOCSIS3.1 (G.Fast might do it, but its a lot of effort and maintainainance)

      1. fortinbras

        Re: time for a new song...

        umm there was also a Sony mini disc player which I saved loads of stuff to then lost the charger :-(

    2. Ashley_Pomeroy

      Re: time for a new song...

      "the very first song played on MTV in the uk was "video killed the radio" star by Buggles... time for a rewrite of that song to "internet killed the telephone call" ...."

      I wonder if that's true. Apparently the first song played on MTV Europe when it launched in 1987 was Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing". MTV UK & Ireland launched in 1997 but I have no idea what it played on opening night.

      1. pɹɐʍoɔ snoɯʎuouɐ

        Re: time for a new song...

        "I wonder if that's true."

        According to the ever so reliable Wikipedia it is backed up by my not so reliable memory,,,, ..

  4. WibbleMe

    1% humm a consistent change over 3/4 years perhaps but not an assumption you could back up easily, things like the weather or slow down in the economy might be to blame.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "For search, although most people use Google – some 87 per cent – a dogged 4 per cent are still going to Ask. About a fifth turn to Yahoo!, 44 per cent to Bing and 1 per cent DuckDuckGo."

    Are we still using 100%'s or is that not a thing anymore or have I missed something?

    1. FrogsAndChips Silver badge

      It just means that some people use more than 1 search engine. I do.

  6. Christian Berger

    BTW Fax is at 4,2% of calls

    and 1,6% of minutes.

    ISDN data calls at at 0,15% of calls and 0,016% of minutes.

    Both numbers come from an unnamed VoIP provider. Obviously Fax and data calls are typically shorter than voice phone calls.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: BTW Fax is at 4,2% of calls

      Well, the Reg reported the significant number of fax machines still in use in the NHS recently, so that probably accounts for most of the usage :-)

  7. FrogsAndChips Silver badge

    Access by device

    62 per cent of the time people spent on the internet was from mobile devices, and just 25 per cent of time is on a desktop or laptop

    That leaves 13% who don't access the internet from a computer, a phone or a tablet. How do they do that, telepathy? Or does that include TV streaming?

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Access by device

      ...and isn't the whole point of a laptop that it's a mobile device?

    2. fortinbras

      Re: Access by device

      how about terminals rather than PCs?

  8. Nick Kew
    Flame

    All-time low of £54.7bn?

    A quick google finds as a data point[1] our entire GDP was around £52.7bn in 1970. A phone (let alone a phone call) may have been a somewhat-expensive luxury back then, but I doubt they consumed more than 100% of the entire economy!

    I'm not even being pedantic when I say claims like "all-time low" need to be qualified! There is genuinely no clue in the article WTF the claim is supposed to mean!

    [1] Or rather two data points: GDP $130.672bn, and exchange rate 0.4033.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: All-time low of £54.7bn?

      Agree, don't know where the 'all time low' reference came from. The Ofcom report makes it clear that it's the lowest figure *in the last 5 years*.

  9. JustSomeBloke

    Will the parasite kill the host?

    OK, parasite is a bit of a strong word for the OTT services but surely this inexorable flow of profit away from the telcos means that they become less and less viable.

    Ultimately, will the OTT’s leech the life out of the host?

    1. paulf
      Meh

      Re: Will the parasite kill the host?

      No, the hosts (Telcos) will simply charge their customers more for service to make up for the revenue lost to the OTT "Parasites". I guess that's when people find out their "Free" OTT service has another hidden cost beyond data slurp.

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