Telecoms innovations impact nearly everyone. Smartphones for example, have transformed the way we live our lives, do business and buy products.  5G is about to transform our ability to download and stream data at high speeds across the UK. And it is safe to say that innovations in video and instant messaging mean that we are no longer bound by physical phone lines or simple voice and text communications.

The latest innovations aren't just impacting businesses everywhere, they are transforming them into incredibly efficient, more stream-lined organisations that are able to provide better service.

What exactly are we talking about?  We will tell you here.

Unified Communications As a Service (UCaas)

Unified communications is a buzz word that means integrating various communications channels and platforms within your business so that you can seamlessly work between them, and anywhere. The 'as a service' part means that this functionality is delivered as-a-service. It doesn't require onsite IT infrastructure or a communications specialist to set it up.  As-a-service models mean that the service provider does everything, including support employees with training and issues should they occur.

Unified communications reduces admin time by cleverly connecting the different mediums in which you work. For example, your phone, CRM platform, billing platform, email, chat, mobile and video conferencing are integrated so that you can easily move between each application.  The applications speak to each other as well, so a call made on your office phone for example, is logged against the record in the CRM system, and shows up on your mobile business VoIP app.

ConTact Centres As a Service (CCAAS)

Innovations in the unified communications realm have had a big impact on businesses, particularly those with a customer service or support function.  In addition to unified communications as a service, organisations are now able to sign up for contact centre solutions, as a service.  What was previously only available to larger corporations with a high number of customers to support, is now available to even the smallest company with only a few support reps.

Contact centre as a service provides functionality such as cloud call queues, cloud-based auto attendants, IVR (Interactive voice response) and advanced call routing all at an affordable per user / per site monthly rate. The result is companies of any size can improve the caller experience, boost agent productivity and enhance operational efficiency.

Machine Learning

Now that Google’s AI DeepMind has beaten a human at the ancient board game ‘Go’, the hype has galvanised around machine learning. Whilst these applications aren’t strictly telecoms-based, there are some interesting applications for machine learning in telecoms:

If your customers are fans of Snapchat or Instagram, then the use of photo recognition may be an interesting prospect for businesses. Using photo metadata and machine learning to describe the contents of a picture means that they are indexable.

Personalisation

Whether you wish to personalise your back office systems or your customer-facing ones, personalisation is always an effective way to increase productivity. The tasks and goals of the user can be adjusted for, so they can get to what they want, quicker.

Whilst Siri and Alexa can still be frustrating to use, their future is definitely bright. As these “personal assistants” become more powerful, more possibilities will be unearthed.

5G

It wasn’t much time after the deployment of 4G in the UK that people began to ponder the possibilities for 5G. Although both are based on the same LTE technology, 5G's most impressive stat is the latency times. And it is here!  EE and Vodafone have both been offering the super-fast network for a few months, and now O2 and Three are offering it as well. 

The importance of 5G can not be underestimated. The world is going mobile and we are consuming more data every year, particularly as the popularity of video and music streaming increases. Existing spectrum bands are becoming congested, leading to breakdowns in service, particularly when lots of people in the same area are trying to access online mobile services at the same time. 5G is much better at handling thousands of devices simultaneously, from mobiles to equipment sensors, video cameras to smart street lights. 5G is not going to be a nice-to-have, but rather a must-have, in order for UK networks to be able to service the increasing number of devices and bandwidth-eating applications in the years to come.

Conclusion

The theme of telecoms innovation is speed, efficiency and productivity. These new ideas are creating new opportunities to revolutionise business communications. New systems make telecoms more than a utility; it becomes a real source of competitive advantage.

About VTSL

VTSL is a leading cloud communications provider in the UK & Ireland, specialising in cloud telephony, connectivity, integrations and unified communications. VTSL offers solutions ranging from contact centres as a service to flexible working solutions to integrated productivity management. VTSL has over 10 years of experience providing the leading IP telephony platform to businesses and over 15,000 users across the UK and Ireland. To speak to one of our experts today, please call 020 7078 3200 or email info@vtsl.net.