FINAL WORD
How are organisations adapting their technology offerings to comply with these Digital Transformation demands ?
COVID-19 has really changed business priorities and , with them , the role of the network inside buildings and campuses . We ’ re seeing companies embrace a lot of remote connections and remote networks , with companies providing opportunities for employees to work from home or away from offices . Other companies are adapting their office sizes and trying to maintain social distancing for health and safety reasons .
Connecting employees to their offices and back to the network has never been more fundamental . Now , with the focus on employee and customer health and safety , we will continue to see building owners roll-out secure VPN connections to connect customers and employees back to their offices and manage their networks differently . a common question around which technology should be adopted – 5G or Wi-Fi 6 ?
But why should you solely fix on one of the technologies and lock yourself in when you can have a convergence between both , These wireless and Wi-Fi networks are complementary and many enterprises will need both – as they work together across a multitude of different use-cases with differing requirements .
As we look forward to what ’ s yet to come in 2021 and beyond , we see the opportunity to leverage the network to improve organisations , so we need to drive more business outcomes by reducing costs and increasing efficiency with a focus on improved health and safety as well as a better customer and employee experience .
What tools and solutions should organisations be investing in to enable this continued digitalisation while managing increased pressure on infrastructure ?
Feras Hani , Infrastructure System Engineer , CommScope
This change will see greater integration and convergence between the Information Technology ( IT ) and Operational Technology ( OT ) teams as they need to make sure they maximise efficiencies and reduce the costs of the building .
We have recently noticed that the OT team is going to be implementing a lot of touchless access control . For example , they may implement several heat and temperature detecting cameras to make sure that customers , employees and visitors coming into the building are within the limits set by the government and health and safety regulations .
We ’ re going to see a lot of systems and applications on monitoring crowds and the space inside every office to ensure social distancing . IP security cameras , LED lights , Digital signage with 4k and HD will be flooded into buildings .
Can you highlight how 5G and other emerging technologies will benefit enterprises in their quest to realise Digital Transformation goals ?
When thinking about investment , you need to think long-term . Organisations need to invest in a converged network that is versatile , with high-performance infrastructure which is capable of handling multiple kinds of application and services at the same time or simultaneously . We have fibre which has the performance and the flexibility to do that and can really handle both the fixed network and the wireless networks .
We also see that fibre can connect different types of projects and buildings such as residential , commercial and industrial . Fibre also enables increased network densification and improved connectivity at the Edge . Over the last five years we have seen an increased number of deployments of Edge data centres with a goal of getting information closer to the customer , these Data centres are being connected with fibre .
Now , to improve the network connectivity , organisations need to partner with the right service providers . Those which prioritise virtualisation should be a top consideration because this will continue to play a very important role in the future of broadband .
We ’ re all in the process of adaptation and futureproofing . It looks like the new normal is here to stay and we ’ re not going to go back to where we were . The networks have never played a more fundamental role as we adapt to meet the changing requirements .
When we talk about new technologies we need to think about the new emerging and the next generation technologies such as 5G and Wi-Fi 6 , and this leads to
We ’ re seeing companies embrace a lot of remote connections and remote networks , with companies providing opportunities for employees to work from home or away from offices .
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