{"id":1975,"date":"2020-03-31T10:41:04","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T09:41:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/?p=1975"},"modified":"2020-03-31T10:48:07","modified_gmt":"2020-03-31T09:48:07","slug":"working-from-home-the-uks-broadband-and-wifi-will-be-put-to-the-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/working-from-home-the-uks-broadband-and-wifi-will-be-put-to-the-test\/","title":{"rendered":"Working from home? The UK\u2019s broadband and wifi will be put to the test"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Many households could face potential challenges in making use of video conferencing, cloud access and other digital technologies necessary for work. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In our latest post, Dr Dylan Henderson assesses the resilience of the UK\u2019s broadband infrastructure as people prepare to work from home in an effort to slow down the spread of coronavirus. <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The UK government\u2019s announcement that\npeople should work at home \u201cwherever possible\u201d shifts more focus towards the\nrobustness of the country\u2019s broadband network and its ability to cope with\nincreased usage. In Spain, which entered a 15-day-plus lockdown of the\npopulation, calls\nwere made<\/a> for residents to reduce their use\nof the internet<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as more people also self-isolate and turn online some have begun to question whether the UK\u2019s \u201cageing\u201d broadband infrastructure<\/a> can cope with millions of people logging in from home. While UK broadband operators argue there is sufficient network capacity to cope with spikes in usage<\/a>, it is unclear whether home users should expect a slowdown in their ability to connect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The coronavirus pandemic is likely to present ongoing challenges for the nation\u2019s broadband infrastructure and the use of it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Although not all workers will be able to\nshift to their home, for example gig\neconomy workers<\/a>, it is likely that many more people will be doing so in the\nnear future. Broadband connectivity is vital for many workers, enabling them to\naccess information and colleagues remotely. It can also help to make contacts\nwith friends and relatives and access to shopping and other services \u2013 all of\nwhich may be vital in any extended period of working from home or\nself-isolation. In this respect, broadband\u2019s\nrole in supporting mental health is clear<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Families may face extra challenges\nassociated with multiple users of wifi, especially if schools close. This may\nrequire parents to limit the screen time of children and encourage homework,\nand upgrade connection speeds. Indeed, one of the main challenges facing\ngreater home working in the UK is the availability of high speed, fibre\nbroadband.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fibre provides fast, reliable speeds,\nrelative to older copper wire connections such as ADSL<\/a>.\nOfcom, the UK regulator, recently estimated that around 3\nmillion homes (only 10% of all homes) can access fibre connections<\/a> \u2013 a\nfigure that is significantly\nbehind other countries<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mobile broadband is increasingly being used\nby some workers as they access cloud-based applications such as Zoom, Google\nHangouts, and Microsoft Teams (which face\ntheir own test<\/a>). This is a further deployment challenge in the UK, with access\nto 4G dependent on where you live<\/a>. Ofcom\u2019s\nreport<\/a> suggested 80% of homes and businesses in UK have indoor 4G coverage,\nwith 5G now available in over 40 UK towns and cities. Of course, if services\ndon\u2019t hold up it will be very challenging \u2013 as\na major outage across five networks<\/a> showed on March 17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means that many households could face\npotential challenges in making use of video conferencing, cloud access and\nother digital technologies necessary for work. In our\nown research at Cardiff Business School<\/a> we found both access to broadband\nand its use varies significantly across business sectors, with the highest\nlevels of use reported in the information and communication and the business\nand professional services sectors, and the lowest in construction and\naccommodation and food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite these challenges and that an\nincreased usage may prove to be behind the\nrecent mobile and digital outages,<\/a> broadband providers say their networks\nare sufficiently robust to prevent a slowdown of the internet in the UK. They\nargue that the network has been designed to cope with high volume usage peaks\nin the evening as people log on to social media and video in the evening.\nOpenreach have also claimed that business use of broadband and enabled\ntechnologies requires lower levels of bandwidth (data transfer) than typical\nsocial applications, and that\n\u201csuggestions that the network \u2018won\u2019t cope\u2019<\/a> are ill-informed and pretty\nirresponsible\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But fears of a slow down mean broadband operators will need to prioritise resilience<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe reality in the UK is that the estimated 3 million households and businesses on older copper-based connections<\/a> are likely to face the greatest threat of slower broadband speeds and access.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

These connections are generally less robust and subject to greater dropout. This also has a spatial dimension \u2013 our research points to faster broadband speeds and digital technology usage in urban, rather than rural<\/a> areas, further implying the challenges of encouraging widespread remote working from home in different areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional concerns\nhave been raised that working from home may carry greater cybersecurity risks.\nIt is well established that home connections are more open than corporate\nnetworks to hacking. So remote workers will need to ensure their security\npatches are up to date, and where possible connection to business networks is\nmade via secure technologies such as virtual private networks<\/a> \u2013 particularly where working with\nsensitive data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While there may be\nsignificant benefits in having access to broadband at the current time,\nquestion marks still exist, then, about the robustness of the UK broadband\nnetwork, its geographical reach, and the ability of workers to make full use of\nthe digital technologies needed to work online. And while this is a fast\nmoving, fluid situation, all of this points to the longer term importance of\nthe UK government delivering on its \u201coptimistic<\/a>\u201d election promises<\/a> on broadband of ensuring \u201cevery home and\nbusiness\u201d has access to a \u201cfull fibre and gigabit-capable broadband\u201d service by\nthe end of 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Dylan\nHenderson<\/strong><\/a> is a Senior Research Fellow at the <\/strong>Welsh\nEconomy Research Unit<\/strong><\/a> in Cardiff Business School.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was originally published by The Conversation UK.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many households could face potential challenges in making use of video conferencing, cloud access and other digital technologies necessary for work. In our latest post, Dr Dylan Henderson assesses the […]","protected":false},"author":1677,"featured_media":1977,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[387],"tags":[1320,1327,557,28,100,1325,1312,1313,1266,389,1326,1319,1318,1329,1322,396,163,185,1323,1324,904,160,1316,1311,395,1317,397,230,48,394,1328,810,44,1314,1315,1321],"class_list":["post-1975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digital-economy","tag-adsl","tag-bandwidth","tag-broadband","tag-cardiff-business-school","tag-cardiff-university","tag-cloud","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-cybersecurity","tag-digital","tag-digital-maturity-survey","tag-full-fibre","tag-gig-economy","tag-gigabit","tag-google-hangouts","tag-infrastructure","tag-internet","tag-mental-health","tag-microsoft-teams","tag-mobile-broadband","tag-network","tag-ofcom","tag-pandemic","tag-resilience","tag-rural","tag-self-isolation","tag-superfast-broadband","tag-the-conversation","tag-uk-government","tag-urban","tag-virtual-private-networks","tag-welsh-economy-research-unit","tag-welsh-government","tag-wifi","tag-working-from-home","tag-zoom"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paOfaS-vR","meta_box":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/620\/2020\/03\/Six-illustrated-working-from-home-scenarios-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1975"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1980,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975\/revisions\/1980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}