WORK FROM HOME IMPACT: THE 2020 PANDEMIC & TELECOMMUNICATIONS
As the world transitions to a more digital workspace, how is it affecting telecommunications?
Take a second and think about all the companies you know that have adapted to a work-from-home approach since the COVID-19 Pandemic. One can assume that many large corporations have a gameplan in place for employees that work from home, or at least some additional equipment to manage a large-scale approach to remote work for their employees. A transition like that can include monitors, cables, modems that allow fast broadband speed, computer towers amongst many others.
Now, try and imagine a scenario with the smaller corporations whom you know have been affected by the Coronavirus. They may not have the tools to provide their employees a successful WFH scenario: fast bandwidth, equipment, or even setting up privacy precautions to help protect their business. These two examples are hypothetical, but a spike in employees working from home is most certainly happening since late February of 2020.
According to the riverbedblog.com, “…88% of organizations have encouraged or required their employees to work from home and 91% of teams in Asia Pacific have implemented ‘work from home’ arrangements since the outbreak.[i]” These staggering percentages are incredible. They prove that the pandemic has indeed changed the ways employment is for most people.
Ultimately, this change in lifestyle has affected the telecommunication industry because of the need to adapt to the fast change when it comes to working from home. Let’s dive deeper into this.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
What is Artificial Intelligence?
Artificial intelligence, also referred to throughout this blog post as AI, is essentially computers acting like humans. This can be through visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary. But AI is much more: it’s also protection, and a digital reading of web pages to one another. In a simplified way, it’s what makes computers smart. How often do you hear someone say “look it up online!” That is AI doing the work for you.
Artificial Intelligence’s transition into daily human life first began as a conversation in the 1950s at a conference, where the topic was actually if AI could be successfully integrated into the day to day human experience. This article published by Harvard University goes in depth about that process. The author, Rockwell Anyoha, says that because of AI slowly being infused with machines, networks, and data that the future is only going to be more AI based than before. “We now live in the age of “big data,” an age in which we have the capacity to collect huge sums of information too cumbersome for a person to process. The application of artificial intelligence in this regard has already been quite fruitful in several industries such as technology, banking, marketing, and entertainment.”
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE FUTURE
With more people transitioning to a work at home lifestyle, how does this impact the forseeable future?
You may be thinking, how does this tie into SWG and us? AI impacts telecommunications, and telecommunications is a domino in the domino effect caused by COVID-19. An article written in Forbes, captures this perfectly:
“Telecommunications is one of the industries that use artificial intelligence in many aspects of business today. Through virtual assistants and chatbots, and the artificial intelligence that runs these tools behind the scenes, telecommunications companies improve customer service and satisfaction. Artificial intelligence is essential for the optimization and predictive maintenance of telecommunications companies’ networks. AI is also hard at work detecting fraudulent activity. Additionally, through predictive analytics, artificial intelligence makes it possible for telecoms to glean actionable business insights from the volumes of data they gather every day.”
After reading that excerpt, now think about how telecommunications can affect someone doing their job from home because of the Coronavirus. Almost every aspect of their job could be compromised or minimally affected if not for a safe and reliable network. This is an obstacle many employers face as they transition to a new normal- whether it is permanent or not. AI is no longer just seeing things like “To prove you’re not a robot, choose the stoplights.” It is so much more.
The last thing on your mind when [if] transitioning to a work from home schedule is making sure your equipment is able to keep up with your workload. ZDNet recently published an article about the challenges of remote work
SWG’S FOCUS
This is where SWG, Inc. comes in to help. Our expertise helps guide you to what networking installation or repair is best for you. Click here to read more and find out why you should choose us.
SWG is a leader in networking, and our experience stretches from telecommunications, broadband repair, installation, and other aspects of the technological realm. The truth is, our focus pivots depending upon our customers, but one thing that is crucial to our industry is staying up to date with the latest trends and forecasting with network communications so that we can better serve you.
Since the pandemic has hit the world, we take into consideration all avenues of payment plans because no two businesses or people are alike. Following the CDC guidelines, we also are able to complete installation for our customers across the globe. SWG, Inc. will be there to help you with your wireless equipment, integration and fiber needs. SWG, Inc. technicians are trained in central office deployments, power systems, data centers, access technologies and wireless/wired infrastructure.
MOVING FORWARD
It’s safe to say that networking and infrastructure will continue to evolve and grow. Some life events propel them forward more than others, but SWG is dedicated to monitoring and adapting to change in order to be the best for our customers.
In 2020, customers are facing many obstacles since the COVID-19 virus has been deemed a pandemic. How can we be proactive when it comes to our network and digital data? Know that SWG has your best interests in mind, and we are here to help you through any changes your business or home life may be taking as a result of COVID.