COVID-19 has Propelled Business Connectivity into the Spotlight

As lockdown scenarios unfolded earlier this year, companies were suddenly required to rethink existing ways of doing business and had to take their organizations almost entirely online, in a matter of days.

During this time, connectivity became the key priority for organizations and the security, stability, speed and performance of communication networks became a subject of global attention. Upon reflection, it is clear that there are areas in which the telecommunications industry has succeeded, and others, where improvements can be made to futureproof connectivity and ensure continuity.

Accommodating new traffic patterns has led to better, more efficient networks

Within the first week of the lockdown, some service providers saw data traffic increase by as much as 40%, due to an uptake in video calling, streaming, and gaming, among other activities. Service providers and companies such as Cisco moved quickly to build in extra capacity and ensure networks continued to perform.

As well as building in additional peering points and capacity, networks moved to implement artificial intelligence systems that would help them automate and oversee complex network operations and increase efficiency. Thankfully, service providers were able to ensure steady connectivity, and maintained acceptable quality of service, without passing the costs onto businesses. We can expect businesses to feel ongoing benefits from the network optimizations that have been implemented.

5G rollout was delayed, but is likely to come back out of the gates even stronger

5G was a key focus for many companies’ strategies prior to the lockdowns that took place across the Middle East and Africa. However the pandemic quickly placed 5G on the backburner. Given the shift of traffic to people’s homes, the top priority for service providers quickly became ensuring stable hard-wired connections.

Yet, the appetite for 5G adoption remains strong and use cases across areas such as telehealth and logistics clearer than ever. There remain strong use cases for 5G in areas such as telehealth and logistic, which may be fast-tracked and stronger than they were precisely because of COVID-19. And in a world where people rely more than ever on internet connections to study, work, and stay connected with their peers, we also expect to see governments step up efforts to address connectivity ‘digital divides’, connecting areas that currently have poor, or no, connectivity. We expect 5G to play a major role in this.

Expect to see new managed services to support remote working

During the lockdown, businesses recognized the benefits of deploying remote working. In many cases, it helped to lower costs and improves operational agility. The growth of remote working, even post-pandemic, will likely lead to the development of new types of cloud services and integrated collaboration tools to support more agile forms of operating.

Telecommuter Managed Services could, for a monthly fee, enable service providers to offer technical support and intelligent traffic routing that reduces latency in calls and delivers a better in-call experience. These managed services will support teleworking and ensure the best quality when businesses need it the most.

Remote security will expand, safeguarding increasingly distributed workforces

With the transition to working from home, the potential ‘attack surface’ of many companies increased significantly. Suddenly, securing these home networks at the source became much more of a priority.

Consequently, new models enabling remote security have rapidly gained traction. Service providers have a clear role to play here, acting as the first layer of security, filtering potential malicious connections before the traffic reaches end users.

Service providers can protect businesses by applying sophisticated behavioral and contextual security analysis to pre-filter encrypted and unencrypted traffic. Different security solutions may also be applied to data stored on business premises or in the cloud. The right approach will involve looking at ‘defense in depth’, combining this pre-filtering with other tools such as VPNs, ‘Zero Trust’ security models and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).

Lessons learnt

Broadly-speaking the direction in which communications technologies were set to evolve hasn’t changed, just the speed with which they have advanced. Companies such as Cisco and the service providers it supplies have long been driving innovative improvements that keep us connected, yet, as is often the case, times of crisis have caused technology to adapt or be adopted a little quicker.

As we look forward, Cisco’s Annual Internet Report anticipates that by 2023, the Middle East and Africa will have 610.8 million Internet users – representing 35% of the population. This number represents an increase of 229.5 million users when compared with data from 2018. Additionally, it is estimated that there will be 1 billion total mobile users by 2023, increasing from 827.3 million in 2018. With 2.6 billion networked devices in the region by the same year, speed, connectivity, and security will be more crucial than ever before.

We have already seen many improvements across areas including network efficiency and capacity, increased adoption and understanding of remote working, and greater adoption of remote security. The challenge now is ensuring that we maintain this momentum and recognize the ongoing potential of digitization to transform industries and benefit both businesses and individuals alike for the years ahead.