Network capacity is the lifeblood of an enterprise — bandwidth enables business.
If you're ever in doubt, just recall what it's like when there is an outage or a major slow-down. Disgruntled employees, frustrated network pros ... it's no wonder that around half of IT staff from network or system admins to VP level and higher all cite network slow-downs as one of their biggest challenges.
Getting the most out of the network is a fine balancing act, so it's understandable that enterprises are always hungry for more bandwidth. Two out of three IT and network professionals expect bandwidth usage to increase by up to 50% by the end of 2017.
Thankfully there are great leaps of progress afoot when it comes to broadband connectivity. Bandwidth availability issues that enterprises routinely face could become a thing of the past. We are on the cusp of a great surge of capacity as gigabit speed internet becomes a reality. In fact, there are already more than 600 deployments of gigabit internet globally.
The mind-boggling speed of gigabit internet is often explained in the number of seconds it would take to, say, download an HD movie (less than 5). But while we can all appreciate the entertainment possibilities, let's not forget its importance from an enterprise perspective. Speeds and capacity on this scale have the power to transform businesses and disrupt business models, as we are already seeing with the advent of virtual reality, augmented reality and the IoT.
Wouldn't it be great to track the development of super-fast broadband deployments as they happen? Viavi thought so. Using publicly available data, we built a visual, living database of gigabit deployments around the world: the Gigabit Monitor. Here's what we found.
The Need for Speed
While fiber makes up the lion's share of deployments (no surprise), there is strong evidence pointing to the scale of cellular gigabit connectivity changing significantly. Currently, we know that 25 mobile operators are lab-testing 5G, and 12 of those have progressed to field trials.
It's fascinating to speculate how such a shift will change public services, manufacturing and retail to name but a few industries. 5G is coming and businesses need to be ready for it.
Digital Transformation
Gigabit deployments have risen at a rate of 72 percent in the past year. This is higher than even we expected. Businesses who are interested in checking the progress of gigabit connectivity by region, provider or technology type can now easily do so. As businesses increasingly adopt agile methods and implement digital transformation, gigabit speeds will be a key enabler.
A Mixed Bag for US Business
Globally, over 219 million people have gigabit speeds available to them. The US leads the way with around 57 percent of deployments. This translates to over 56 million people in the US having gigabit broadband available to them, but that accounts for only 17 percent of the overall US population. Contrast this with the next highest ranking country for deployments, South Korea, whose installations cover slightly less than 10 million people, fewer than the US, but have achieved 93 percent population coverage.
We are still at the very start of the gigabit revolution. Just 3.1 percent of the world's population are able to access gigabit internet currently, but those penetration levels are changing rapidly. New deployments are being reported all the time, and LTE and 5G installations are expected in the very near future. The impact on the day-to-day running of business networks will be transformative, powering an explosion in application innovation and disrupting business models.
The Latest
In today's competitive landscape, businesses must have the ability and process in place to face new challenges and find ways to successfully tackle them in a proactive manner. For years, this has been placed on the shoulders of DevOps teams within IT departments. But, as automation takes over manual intervention to increase speed and efficiency, these teams are facing what we know as IT digitization. How has this changed the way companies function over the years, and what do we have to look forward to in the coming years? ...
Although the vast majority of IT organizations have implemented a broad variety of systems and tools to modernize, simplify and streamline data center operations, many are still burdened by inefficiencies, security risks and performance gaps in their IT infrastructure as well as the excessive time it takes to manage legacy infrastructure, according to the State of IT Transformation, a report from Datrium ...
When it comes to network visibility, there are a lot of discussions about packet broker technology and the various features these solutions provide to network architects and IT managers. Packet brokers allow organizations to aggregate the data required for a variety of monitoring solutions including network performance monitoring and diagnostic (NPMD) platforms and unified threat management (UTM) appliances. But, when it comes to ensuring these solutions provide the insights required by NetOps and security teams, IT can spend an exorbitant amount of time dealing with issues around adds, moves and changes. This can have a dramatic impact on budgets and tool availability. Why does this happen? ...
Data may be pouring into enterprises but IT professionals still find most of it stuck in siloed departments and weeks away from being able to drive any valued action. Coupled with the ongoing concerns over security responsiveness, IT teams have to push aside other important performance-oriented data in order to ensure security data, at least, gets prominent attention. A new survey by Ivanti shows the disconnect between enterprise departments struggling to improve operations like automation while being challenged with a siloed structure and a data onslaught ...
A subtle, deliberate shift has occurred within the software industry which, at present, only the most innovative organizations have seized upon for competitive advantage. Although primarily driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI), this transformation strikes at the core of the most pervasive IT resources including cloud computing and predictive analytics ...
When asked who is mandated with developing and delivering their organization's digital competencies, 51% of respondents say their IT departments have a leadership role. The critical question is whether IT departments are prepared to take on a leadership role in which collaborating with other functions and disseminating knowledge and digital performance data are requirements ...
The Economist Intelligence Unit just released a new study commissioned by Riverbed that explores nine digital competencies that help organizations improve their digital performance and, ultimately, achieve their objectives. Here's a brief summary of 7 key research findings you'll find covered in detail in the report ...
Today, the overall customer scenario has digitally transformed and practically there is no limitation to the ways in which the target customers can be reached. These opportunities are throwing multiple challenges for brands and enterprises, and one of the prominent ones is to ensure Omni Channel experience for customers ...
Most businesses (92 percent of respondents) see the potential value of data and 36 percent are already monetizing their data, according to the Global Data Protection Index from Dell EMC. While this acknowledgement is positive, however, most respondents are struggling to properly protect their data ...
IT practitioners are still in experimentation mode with artificial intelligence in many cases, and still have concerns about how credible the technology can be. A recent study from OpsRamp targeted these IT managers who have implemented AIOps, and among other data, reports on the primary concerns of this new approach to operations management ...
