Friday, October 2, 2009

Will Net Neutrality Affect Teleworkers?

New "net neutrality" rules proposed by the Federal Communications Commission could affect teleworkers across the country, says Irwin Lazar, Nemertes Research VP.

If new rules strictly require Internet access providers to treat all traffic equally, which has a nice ring to it, it follows that it would also be unlawful to prioritize traffic, such as giving top priority to voice traffic or conferencing traffic at remote work sites.

That might have implications for the sorts of broadband access services organizations are able to buy for remote workers.

Enterprises and organizations might very well require the ability to prioritize voice and conferencing sessions, while assigning lower priority to Web surfing or entertainment video, for example.

That might mean it is not possible to buy standard broadband access services, and might require sourcing of private business class connections where such prioritization is possible. The ability to create virtual tunnels and virtual private networks might be required, and therefore might preclude buying of consumer broadband connections.

That could prove troublesome for teleworker support, as Nemertes Research now estimates that 86 percent of companies are planning to increase the number of teleworkers.

Proposed Net Neutrality rules may hinder their ability to utilize latency sensitive applications without purchasing a business-class service with performance guarantees. Uses of client-based optimization as well as desktop virtualization are likely to increase.

"Do not continue to assume that your employees will always have cheap access to high-speed residential services," says Lazar. "Develop contingency plans that include purchasing of business class services, use of optimization, and, or desktop virtualization to guarantee application performance."

No comments:

Many Winners and Losers from Generative AI

Perhaps there is no contradiction between low historical total factor annual productivity gains and high expected generative artificial inte...