GEC, Plessey, Marconi, ITT, STC  are the big non-existent UK names who might have been, but behind them were very many smaller makers of the test gear and the design tools, like Advance (of signal generator fame), Cossor ( 'scopes and  test receivers) AVO for meters, and many others - along with smaller essentials to a fast R and D operation. The PCB prototyping houses, the folk who can make metal boxes quickly, in effect without the big demand, the entire infrastructure of these businesses slowly withers, ideally you need indigineous capability not just to design 'phone hardware, but to build the network analysers, design and make the antenna arrays, manufacture substrates for RF PCBs etc.  Esssentially, over the last 30 years or so it has either closed totally, or become an importing shop for other countries skills.


It is very telling that there are no semiconductor foundries making microwave ICs in the UK, and no makers of high frequency PCB material or the small passive components like Mullard and EMI and others used to do, so it all has to be imported, and that makes it slow and expensive compared to the folk who can just get something sent in the post next day from within the same country.


So it just never gets off the ground.

You can debate the detail  of the cause, but once its gone, short of a wartime type stimulus, it will almost certainly not restart.

GEC, Plessey, Marconi, ITT, STC  are the big non-existent UK names who might have been, but behind them were very many smaller makers of the test gear and the design tools, like Advance (of signal generator fame), Cossor ( 'scopes and  test receivers) AVO for meters, and many others - along with smaller essentials to a fast R and D operation. The PCB prototyping houses, the folk who can make metal boxes quickly, in effect without the big demand, the entire infrastructure of these businesses slowly withers, ideally you need indigineous capability not just to design 'phone hardware, but to build the network analysers, design and make the antenna arrays, manufacture substrates for RF PCBs etc.  Esssentially, over the last 30 years or so it has either closed totally, or become an importing shop for other countries skills.


It is very telling that there are no semiconductor foundries making microwave ICs in the UK, and no makers of high frequency PCB material or the small passive components like Mullard and EMI and others used to do, so it all has to be imported, and that makes it slow and expensive compared to the folk who can just get something sent in the post next day from within the same country.


So it just never gets off the ground.

You can debate the detail  of the cause, but once its gone, short of a wartime type stimulus, it will almost certainly not restart.