New Report: “UK Lagging Behind Global Drone Economy — Immediate Action Required!”

Researchers from BT Group and GSMA Intel­li­gence pub­lished a report this week warn­ing that the UK is lag­ging behind the rapid­ly expand­ing glob­al drone econ­o­my, where imme­di­ate action is required with­in the next year to catch up, reports marketscreener.com. The two com­pa­nies have laid out guid­ance for the UK Gov­ern­ment and reg­u­la­tors to trans­form the drone econ­o­my, as the coun­try lands mid-table in a new glob­al study of “inter­na­tion­al drone readi­ness.”

The report, com­mis­sioned by BT Group, says, “The UK must learn from inter­na­tion­al peers and rec­om­men­da­tions are pub­lished which could help guar­an­tee the coun­try to become a leader in the drone econ­o­my, if act­ed on with­in the next year.”

The research found that many of the UK’s inter­na­tion­al part­ners, includ­ing Japan, Switzer­land, France, Ger­many and Italy have seen their drone ecosys­tems devel­op faster due to estab­lished reg­u­la­to­ry sys­tems and infra­struc­ture. The UK cur­rent­ly sits at the mid­dle ‘drone readi­ness’ index, with Switzer­land tak­ing a lead­ing posi­tion and, sur­pris­ing­ly, the U.S at the bot­tom of the table reflect­ing slow­er progress in drone reg­u­la­to­ry rules.

The report con­tin­ues, “With drones poten­tial­ly con­tribut­ing UKP45 bil­lion to the econ­o­my and sup­port­ing 650,000 jobs by 2030, the report’s rec­om­men­da­tions has trans­for­ma­tive poten­tial for both the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor.”

BT Group Used its Net­work to Pow­er UK-first Drone Med­ical Deliv­ery Tri­al with Sky­far­er

Mean­while, a sep­a­rate poll for BT Group found that 75 per­cent of con­sumers believe it is essen­tial for drones to be used for pub­lic ser­vice deliv­ery, and two thirds agree that drones could have a pos­i­tive impact on their lives.

The report out­lines four key rec­om­men­da­tions:-

Facil­i­tat­ing per­mis­sions for safe, remote­ly pilot­ed drone flights at scale, where Beyond Visu­al Line of Sight (BVLOS) under­pins a suc­cess­ful drone indus­try and its appli­ca­tions

While the UK has a BVLOS pol­i­cy, the research sug­gests it is con­fus­ing and unclear among the raft of com­pa­nies and start-ups test­ing or seek­ing deploy­ment of their ser­vices at scale. The imple­men­ta­tion guide­lines need to be sim­pli­fied and mod­ernised. And a sup­port­ing reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work that includes Unmanned Air­craft Traf­fic Sys­tem Man­age­ment (UTM), safe­ty stan­dards and train­ing — must be a pri­or­i­ty.

Enforce pro-inno­va­tion reg­u­la­tions and a pro-growth reg­u­la­to­ry cul­ture

The CAA must for­mu­late work­able reg­u­la­tions that pro­mote invest­ment in a time­ly man­ner, while ensur­ing safe oper­a­tions and deliv­er­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence in the indus­try.

Extend the Future Flight Chal­lenge

The UK has many inno­v­a­tive com­pa­nies in the drone sec­tor that need a say in reg­u­la­to­ry devel­op­ment. The flag­ship Future Flight Chal­lenge, which the gov­ern­ment has fund­ed, has been a clear help and stim­u­lus to pri­vate sec­tor inno­va­tion and so this, or a relat­ed scheme, should be extend­ed.

Act Now!

The UK has a win­dow that is as nar­row as 12 months to set the reg­u­la­tions and guid­ance to help the sec­tor thrive. The study found that many advanced economies expect drone reg­u­la­tions to be in place by 2024–2025, a date that the UK must also meet to remain com­pet­i­tive in devel­op­ing home-grown tech­nol­o­gy for domes­tic use and in export mar­kets.

Dave Pankhurst

BT Group’s research also reveals there is strong con­sumer demand for drone capa­bil­i­ties from a wide range of indus­tries such as util­i­ties, pub­lic ser­vices, man­u­fac­tur­ing, last-mile logis­tics and dis­tri­b­u­tion, con­ser­va­tion and land/forestry man­age­ment, film and TV sec­tors.

The report com­ments, “BT Group’s start­up incu­ba­tion hub, Etc., has already made sig­nif­i­cant steps in unlock­ing the poten­tial of drones. Ear­li­er this year, Etc. announced a land­mark part­ner­ship with UTM spe­cial­ist Alti­tude Angel, a col­lab­o­ra­tion that will help enable Etc. to become a one-stop shop for UK drone enable­ment capa­bil­i­ties.”

It adds, “Action­ing the report’s rec­om­men­da­tions could play a key role in bring­ing to mar­ket fur­ther oppor­tu­ni­ties that drone tech­nol­o­gy has to offer the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor — from sup­port­ing the police to rapid trans­port of blood sam­ples and deliv­ery of items cheap­er and faster than ever before.”

Dave Pankhurst, Direc­tor of Drones, Etc. at BT Group, com­ment­ed, “Across the globe, the drone indus­try is being rapid­ly unlocked. Tap­ping into this can trans­form the world of busi­ness, the deliv­ery of pub­lic ser­vices, and the prospects for the UK econ­o­my.”

He con­tin­ued, ”BT Group is lead­ing from the front. Our mobile net­work, as the largest and most reli­able in the UK, could be crit­i­cal. From improv­ing flight con­trol; assist­ing with authen­ti­ca­tion and autho­ri­sa­tion; facil­i­tat­ing data trans­mis­sion; and enabling cel­lu­lar com­mu­ni­ca­tion, 4G and 5G tech­nol­o­gy can be the back­bone of the indus­try.” Adding, “At Etc., we have reached some sig­nif­i­cant land­marks already, but with these new rec­om­men­da­tions, we hope to ral­ly the sup­port of the gov­ern­ment and indus­try reg­u­la­tors for the UK drone indus­try to reach its full poten­tial.”

Tim Hatt

Tim Hatt, Head of Con­sult­ing at GSMA Intel­li­gence, remarked, “There is no ques­tion drones will be a key part of suc­cess­ful dig­i­tal economies. The tech­nol­o­gy side of devel­op­ment is hap­pen­ing at pace across the board. The issue now is hav­ing reg­u­la­to­ry sys­tems that enable com­mer­cial expan­sion at scale. The chal­lenge for the UK is that, despite huge progress in drone devel­op­ment, reg­u­la­tion has not kept pace and the coun­try there­fore scores only 62 out of 100 on over­all mar­ket readi­ness, plac­ing it behind Euro­pean peers and oth­ers such as Japan.”

He con­tin­ued, ”This need not be the case. Beyond the hive of activ­i­ty hap­pen­ing in the drone sec­tor, UK mobile net­work infra­struc­ture and ser­vice devel­op­ment are advanc­ing; 4G and 5G mobile cov­er­age now reach 99 per­cent and 63 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion respec­tive­ly. Tak­ing action on these rec­om­men­da­tions would go a long way to help­ing the gov­ern­men­t’s ambi­tions to make the UK a tech­no­log­i­cal leader in the 5G era, pro­vid­ing a boost to GDP, jobs and inter­na­tion­al com­pet­i­tive­ness.”

Back­ground

GSMA Intel­li­gence is the defin­i­tive source of glob­al mobile oper­a­tor data, analy­sis and fore­casts, and pub­lish­er of author­i­ta­tive indus­try reports and research. The company’s data cov­ers every oper­a­tor group, net­work and MVNO in every coun­try world­wide from Afghanistan to Zim­bab­we. The com­pa­ny claims “It is the most accu­rate and com­plete set of indus­try met­rics avail­able, com­pris­ing tens of mil­lions of indi­vid­ual data points, updat­ed dai­ly.”

The con­sumer research was con­duct­ed using Yon­der’s online omnibus among a nation­al­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive sam­ple of 2,092 UK adults between 29th and 30th March 2023.

Down­load FREE Report

https://www.bt.com/content/dam/bt-plc/assets/documents/newsroom/race-to-the-top.pdf

(News Source: www.marketscreener.com)

(Top image: Cred­it © Sarawuth Pamoon/Dreamstime)