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Interviews
At Connected Britain 2025 we sat down with Rob Atkinson from EY to explore the biggest challenges and opportunities facing the telecoms sector
The phrase ‘telco to techco’ has been one floating around the telecoms industry for many years now, but evidence of true transformation remains scarce.
According to Rob Atkinson, Partner, Telecommunications, Media and Technology leader at EY UK&I, most telcos on this journey today are not yet bold enough to push for a full reimagining of their current business model but are instead trying to tighten their focus and simplify their operations.
“The telcos are being more deliberate in the choices they are making – in some cases, between servco and netco,” said Atkinson. “They want to be asset right in the way that they apply themselves, so they’re not trying to be all things to all people.”
Of course, AI has a major role to play in this transformation journey, with industry optimism for the technology – particularly agentic AI – reaching fever pitch. But, as Atkinson points out, studies suggest 95% of AI pilots so far are currently failing. There is a major disconnect between the push for AI-powered customer experience and the reality of legacy IT systems hindering innovation.
“There’s no shortage of engagement – everyone knows there’s opportunity. But the way many organisations are not quite cutting through at the moment,” he said. “These organisations are not being bold enough in the way they’re adopting and trying to embrace these new technologies.”
Finally, Atkinson offered a vital reality check on the massive data centres investment announcements in recent months, highlighting the many practical barriers to turning billions of pounds of capital into functioning deployments. From obtaining planning permission to the crucial challenge of securing cost-effective and sustainable energy, the future of these projects is far from certain.
“I think it’ll be interesting to see, of all the hyperscale projects that we’ve seen announced, which actually get shovels in the ground,” said Atkinson. “Many of these projects are dependent on new innovations in cooling system and energy reuse, which are the other half of the equation. If we don’t get those bits right and deal with the carbon problems associate with these power-hungry data centres, we could see these projects stall.”
Watch our full interview below: