First and foremost, our hearts go out to those around the world impacted by the COVID-19 virus. The director of the U.S. Center for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), who advises the country on public health, has indicated that the risk to the general public remains low and encourages Americans to go about their lives. Businesses and local communities are taking a much more personal approach. Many business, schools, and other organizations are advising their employees to work from home and students to stay home or use online learning.

We are seeing an unprecedented number of remote users on home and public internet services accessing their employer and school resources. This opens up these organizations to more risk from all of the remote users. IT departments are monitoring network bandwidth, VPNs, and access controls to make sure employees can still do their jobs. It is putting a strain on the organization infrastructure and the various internet providers.

From the employee’s point of view, do they have adequate infrastructure at home to work remotely?

  • Are their internet speeds fast enough? When subscribing to a service, most users are looking for fast download speeds so they can stream content, but for a work from home scenario, the upload speeds are critical, too.
  • What is their bandwidth cap? If one or more parents are working from home, kids are doing online learning because schools have closed (There are several instances of this.) and they are still streaming all of their TV and movies. That bandwidth cap can seem very small, and going over it can be costly.
  • Is there a good area to work in? A desk for most jobs is optimal, but if both parents are working from home and the kids are doing online learning, then finding enough well-suited quiet (Read more...)