COVID-19 impacts on the telecoms industry

As the current pandemic continues to unfold, reports indicate a new wave of change to come. While it may be too early to know all the details of this change, we can say the telecoms industry is headed towards a new era. What we know so far is that service providers were well equipped to meet the 30-40% increase in bandwidth on networks that came as people went into lockdown and started working from home. The planned capacity increases for the entire year were consumed during the height of the pandemic.

Now that service providers, organizations and businesses are aware of the capabilities of work from home, how will the typical work culture change? Neil Anderson, World Wide Technology Senior Director, Network Solutions, expects a hybrid-working environment to emerge. “So, with the employees, we don’t expect that there’s going to be a return of 100% going back to central working locations and office locations,” Anderson said. “It depends on the industry. You can’t be a surgeon and work from home.”

On the telco side, Verizon was able to shift 115,000 of its 135,000 employees to WFH by mid-March. Conversely, Charter Communications came under fire for not allowing some of its employees to work from home during the early stages of the Coronavirus.

Anderson commented that potential employees will take note of how a company handles work from home policies during the pandemic. The Senior Director also remarked “We see organizations that are looking at more permanent solutions. If this isn’t just a blip and I’m going to have persistent home offices, maybe I need to do something more permanent?”  

As the companies that already provide network connectivity and business solutions to end customers, service providers need to shift their attention to providing better home-based solutions and applications.

Moreover, service providers in the telecoms industry noticed a need to shift their attention towards providing better home-based applications and solutions.