Research and development on next-generation 5G and 6G wireless technology and telecoms security will be boosted by £110m government investment.
The package includes an £80, fund to set up a UK Telecoms Lab in the West Midlands for mobile network operators, suppliers and academics to research and test the security, resilience and performance of their 5G and 6G network technology.
The facility will also create dozens of specialised jobs in telecoms and cyber security for the region.
Three top UK universities, University of York, University of Bristol and University of Surrey, will receive a share of £28m to team up telecos including Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung to design and build networks of the future.
A new partnership with the Republic of Korea has also kicked off, which aims to accelerate the deployment of Open RAN and associated technologies. The joint project, will receive more than £3m to focus on the power efficiency of emerging technical equipment.
Digital Secretary Michelle Donelan said: “The funding will also turbocharge our work to strengthen telecoms supply chains so we are no longer reliant on a handful of companies to develop and maintain our 5G networks.”
The investment has been lauded by Sharad Sharma, Head of Network and B2B Business at NTT DATA UK&I, who said: “By investing wisely now, the UK has an opportunity to prevent threat actors from other nation states gaining access to our most vital services in the future.”
“Recently, we have seen new small to mid-size telecom service providers popping up in the telecoms industry such as altnet providers and Neutral hosts. They will benefit from this initiative in security as the current focus for these players is to deploy and expand the footprint.”