Digitalisation: reshaping the industry landscape

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is upon us. The increasing availability of technologies such as 5G wireless, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, robotics, cloud, big data analytics and the Internet of Things is dramatically transforming the way we work and live. The communications industry – like all others – is experiencing significant disruption as a result of digitalisation. At the same time, digitalisation also presents a huge opportunity for the industry to create innovative new services for businesses and consumers, to transform their networks with virtualised infrastructure, to digitalise the customer journey, and in the process take a greater share in the value of the digital economy.

The 2^nd March 2018 saw Herbert Smith Freehills host a series of panel discussions with key industry leaders and decision makers to discuss the opportunities presented by the digital revolution, together with some of the challenges for telecom companies in delivering the essential infrastructure and capturing a fair share of the value created by it. Click on our short video below to see key decision makers and leaders in the communications industry addressing the future of the industry in an increasingly digital world. A number of Herbert Smith Freehills partners and senior lawyers also gave presentations on a selection of the most important business and legal issues facing the sector as it is reshaped by digitalisation. Our report summarises the key opportunities and challenges discussed on the day including results of polling questions put to the audience.