5G
There has been enormous progress on 5G over the past twelve months. The standout development has been the completion of the Vodafone and Three UK merger in May 2025, creating VodafoneThree – now the UK’s largest mobile operator with around 27 million customers. They’ve committed £11 billion of network investment over the next decade and have already begun deploying MOCN (Multi-Operator Core Network) technology across more than 8,000 mast sites, allowing customers on both networks to automatically connect to whichever signal is strongest. That’s a tangible, immediate improvement for millions of users.
Beyond the merger, 5G Standalone continues to mature across all the major networks, delivering on the full promise of 5G with lower latency, higher speeds, better efficiency and support for massive-scale IoT. The 5G footprint has expanded significantly, and we’re seeing the technology become a genuinely viable primary connectivity option for businesses that would previously have defaulted to a fixed line.
Shared Rural Network
The Shared Rural Network has delivered ahead of schedule on its headline target, with 4G coverage from at least one operator now reaching 95% of the UK’s geography. Over 110 government-funded mast upgrades have been activated across Wales, Scotland and England, and total not-spot work continues through to early 2027.
For the channel, this is significant because it removes one of the lingering objections to mobile-based solutions – that coverage in rural areas isn’t reliable enough. That argument is increasingly difficult to sustain. We’re seeing reseller partners confidently proposing 4G and 5G solutions to customers with sites in locations that would have been a concern even a couple of years ago. Multi-branch businesses – whether that’s retail chains, schools, petrol forecourts or EV charging networks – can now realistically be served with mobile connectivity across virtually all of their estate.
2026
2026 will be a year of acceleration. The VodafoneThree network integration is targeting over 10,000 MOCN sites by March 2026, with 95% of the rollout expected within six years. That will meaningfully improve mobile coverage and capacity across huge parts of the country, eliminating thousands of square kilometres of not-spots.
We also expect continued expansion of 5G Standalone capabilities, which will unlock new use cases around IoT and private networks.
For our reseller partners, 2026 should bring even more options to solve customer connectivity challenges with speed and flexibility. The toolkit available to the channel has never been stronger.
PSTN Switch-off
The PSTN switch-off deadline was pushed back from December 2025 to January 2027, largely due to challenges around migrating vulnerable customers and telecare devices. But the commercial reality hasn’t changed – if anything, the urgency has increased. Openreach recently warned that over 500,000 business lines still haven’t migrated, and legacy line prices are set to double by October 2026. There are still 2.8 million lines on the old network that need to move.
For Jola and our reseller partners, this continues to be the single biggest driver of growth. The PSTN switch-off is a compelling event that forces businesses to re-evaluate their entire telecoms infrastructure. When they do, many discover that 4G and 5G mobile data solutions can deliver more for less, without the complexity and lead times associated with installing replacement fixed lines. A cellular solution can be deployed in days rather than weeks or months, and with improving coverage and speeds, the performance gap has effectively closed for the majority of use cases.
The delay to 2027 simply extends the window of opportunity for the channel. The message to resellers is clear: if you’re not already having these conversations with your customers, your competitors will be.
Opportunities
The opportunity for the channel is enormous and growing.
The VodafoneThree merger and the continued expansion of 5G SA will drive new use cases around IoT and private networks. As device connectivity grows and data consumption increases, the demand for managed mobile data solutions through the channel will only strengthen.
For Jola’s reseller partners specifically, the combination of the PSTN deadline, improving mobile coverage, and growing business appetite for flexible, rapidly-deployed wireless connectivity means the addressable market is expanding significantly. Businesses don’t want to wait twelve weeks for a fixed-line installation when a 5G can be live in days. The partners who invest now in understanding and selling these converged wireless solutions will be the ones who capture the biggest share of what is becoming a very substantial market opportunity.
Jola
Jola helps channel partners uncover prospects with immediate requirements for M2M and IoT solutions. We develop unique solutions that partners can't buy from anyone else at a competitive price, allowing a healthy margin. We are channel-only, so partners can trust us to help them pitch and close deals. We are on hand to support partners and their customers throughout the buying process, and we can help create winning propositions, producing large, high-margin, long-term contracts.
