Last year, our forecast for the 2020 telecoms industry predicted we would be generating larger amounts of data, which would call for more bandwidth, along with a scalable, redundant network to accommodate the increases. What an understatement that turned out to be! Like everyone else, here at Great Plains Communications we certainly didn’t foresee the devastating global coronavirus pandemic. It changed the way we use the internet seemingly overnight. Still, our predictions turned out to be true - the resulting data explosion from remote working fast-forwarded the timetable.
Based on what we’ve seen this past year, here are important trends to prepare for in 2021 and beyond.
The Hybrid Workplace
Today we see more and more businesses and employees embracing a #HybridWorkplace, where some employees are fully #RemoteWork, some go into a physical office and others work from a combination of office, home and other locations. In this new workplace model, productivity is tied to the internet. Everyone stalls if the internet connection goes down.
For the new hybrid workplace model to be successful over the long term, both companies and employees must be able to access ample on-demand bandwidth that can scale according to the number of users and the functions they’re performing. Video conferencing tools such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom, streaming video, instant messaging, project management software, file sharing and other programs all come with higher bandwidth requirements and place heavier loads on the network.
Working remotely gives many people more flexibility as to where they live. Thus, bridging the so-called “digital divide” with more fiber capabilities and bandwidth for rural areas will also become a priority.
Cloud Services
The hybrid work model and cloud technologies go hand-in-hand. Organizations of all sizes - from startups to enterprises to public and private institutions - are shifting data and workloads from their in-house network to cloud services models.
Tony Thakur,
CTO, Great
Plains
Communications
Some sectors such as financial services may be more inclined to employ a private cloud, where hardware and software are dedicated solely to one organization. As companies in other markets become more comfortable that public cloud providers can offer the privacy and security that’s required, more are turning to public clouds such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.
Other options are a hybrid cloud model or a mix of private and public clouds. The use of the multicloud model, where organizations connect their platforms to several different cloud providers, perhaps both private and public, to meet different technical requirements or business goals, will also increase.
Companies are increasingly employing the Internet of Things (IoT) and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technologies. The benefits cloud services offer - availability, scalability and the ability to process large quantities of data from sensors, to name a few - are what make the devices, appliances and applications smart.
To take full advantage of the cloud environment, the network that supports high-speed, reliable and flexible fiber broadband is vital.
The Network is the Bridge
At Great Plains Communications, we’ve seen an upsurge in bandwidth, traffic and utilization across the network this past year. We operate a long-haul network that spans the Midwest, an IP network and metro networks. We also have a number of access networks that we use to deliver our services to our customers.
Early in 2020 when our customers abruptly switched to working and learning from home, our network traffic increased 30-35%, peaking at more than 50% back in April. We also saw increased Ethernet utilization on the metro and long-haul networks. Voice traffic increased as well. Compared with last year, network traffic has increased approximately 40%.
We foresee network traffic continuing on the upward trajectory; it will not slow down. Here are some networking trends that we should consider:
- The enterprise directly connects to the home via the access networks. Traditional office environments have direct connections to the internet and to data centers, with traffic going from a building directly to the cloud. With a hybrid workplace model, users are now dependent on their ISP, local cable company, and local provider for internet access for remote working, learning, video streaming, gaming and more. That shift has taxed the access networks and brings up the question: Do I make this employee’s home a node on our corporate network?
- How and when traffic is consumed has also shifted. The new hybrid workplace calls for sufficient bandwidth, available on demand. People need to access cloud applications, or applications that live both in the cloud and in private networks, according to demands of their combined professional and personal lives. The days when someone ordered a circuit and waited 60-90 days for that circuit to turn up are over. Customers now expect to turn up whatever bandwidth they need and then turn it down via a portal. Carriers must look at ways to automate and virtualize as much network activity as possible to facilitate the shift to on-demand services.
- Re-examine disaster recovery strategies. Backup data may be physically stored onsite, in another building or in other facilities around the country. With a hybrid workplace scenario, with connections to both public and private clouds and employees using their own devices to connect to the corporate network, disaster recovery plans should be re-examined to include all assets and infrastructure.
There are a number of automation and virtualization technologies we should leverage to adapt to the changes in how bandwidth is now consumed and applications are used. For example, use compute resources and software to deliver services such as SD-WAN, firewalls, and routing.
Overall, we must scale the network and ensure the architecture has the flexibility to increase and decrease bandwidth capacity. The network must become more agile to meet the changing needs of its users and adapt faster. The core network is built with ringed redundancy and adequate capacity to meet the upward demand trends, while the metro and access networks may require more attention. More fiber capabilities must be added to ensure adequate bandwidth, not only in the metro areas but in the rural communities as well.
Staying in front of bandwidth requirements, creating more bandwidth to cloud connectivity-type products and being flexible to support our customers as they adapt to our new environment is what we’ve been doing at Great Plains Communications, and what we will continue to do moving forward.
The network is the bridge. The capabilities and bandwidth of fiber broadband in metro and rural communities will allow us to work and learn and seek medical help from anywhere.
