A business’ ability to maintain work-from-home (WFH) policies post-pandemic is linked to three factors, according to a new white paper from the Fibre Council Global Alliance (FCGA). “The Future of Work: Analyzing Global Broadband Trends” explores which broadband technology was used most by home workers and what technology investments businesses made to support remote employees.
The six regional chapters of the FCGA — the Fiber Broadband Association North America and LATAM chapters, FTTH Council Europe, FTTH Council Asia Pacific, North Africa and Middle East Fiber Connect Council and the Digital Council Africa — conducted surveys to better understand the quality of experience businesses and employees faced while working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how those experiences differed across global regions.
The white paper illustrates interesting regional differences as well as several areas of global alignment. The research reveals that a business’ ability to maintain WFH policies post-pandemic is linked to three factors:
- Whether employees are involved in production of equipment/service that requires on premises presence;
- Whether the right IT tools are in place to support WFH; and
- Whether employees have sufficient internet access to maintain productivity.
The third factor is particularly important, considering internet bandwidth was reported as the biggest WFH issue, and respondents further indicated that current cable-supplied internet speeds are insufficient. Latin American respondents indicated the highest overall bandwidth constraints, followed by North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
“While remote workforce trends have been growing over the last decade, the pandemic made work-from-home a necessity overnight. As we expected, our survey results demonstrate that global broadband networks struggled to keep up with this demand,” said Deborah Kish, Vice President of Research and Marketing at the Fiber Broadband Association. “Fibre is critical to eliminating these broadband struggles. A fibre broadband network offers the best performance in speed, latency, reliability and end-user experience than any other type of broadband network.”
The FCGA will present its findings in a webinar on Tuesday, July 13, at 10:00 am EDT.
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