In past months, most businesses have been forced into home working and generally, this has been incredibly successful. Now that companies are beginning to re-open their offices, a balance of working between the office and at home is likely to become the “new normal”.

Many companies are looking at strategies for how to deliver the best working experience for their staff regardless of location, however, it is beginning to raise a number of questions specifically around security, performance and supporting both of those.

THE TROUBLE WITH HOME WORKING

• Staff feedback is that the home office isn’t ideal and whilst users can work, the home network can cause a challenge
• The “last mile” is a major source of frustration, as coverage is not always as good as required due to:
     – Broadband in rural areas can be poor, as the infrastructure, compared to a city, is not in place
     – Varying quality of home networking kit, most often the kit has been provided by the broadband supplier for “free”
     – The network being shared across multiple users in the home including being used for 4K TVs, game consoles and smart devices

• IT service teams are unable to have visibility of the home network and are unable to troubleshoot any issues
• Support has changed from supporting a few offices to hundreds/thousands of remote offices that all have differing networks and capabilities
• Hardware has been found to be largely unpatched, creating a security risk for an organisation’s data
• Unlike enterprise broadband, domestic broadband does not provide the same support levels and so the resolution of issues is poor

THE SOLUTION

Mobliciti’s solution is homeConnect and at its heart it solves the problem of poor connectivity by putting in a separate connection specifically for work.

The service delivers the connection over the best available provider and it is an unlimited service across a choice of networks: Vodafone, O2 and Three.

The solution is delivered as a 24/7 managed service and the Mobliciti Managed Service Centre is responsible for monitoring, patching and maintaining the service.

USE CASES

USER A User A lives in a semi-rural area on the outskirts of a small town in Suffolk. Whilst their broadband has always been acceptable, during the first month of lockdown it became noticeable that the network was at full capacity with two people working from home and two teenagers gaming and communicating via the internet. Zoom was a particular challenge as the user suffered from glitchy performance and soft video. The user also tried tethering from their phone for a better connection but was still only receiving 5Mbpsdownload and upload. Mobliciti installed homeConnect which provided dramatically better service and so by using 4G connectivity and the right antenna the user was able to increase their download speeds to 40Mbps and uploads to 30Mbps.

USER B User B is from a large legal firm and lives in a traditionally rural area, their home broadband was particularly poor resulting in 3Mbps download and 1Mbps upload speeds. The existing connection would not allow for any video conferencing and so they resorted to dialling into sessions when their video presence was actually required. The user was based approximately 4KM from the nearest mast and after running some tests using homeConnect, Mobliciti could provide them with 40Mbps download and 30Mbps upload speeds.

A SOLUTION FOR EVERY SITUATION

Mobliciti can deliver better last-mile connectivity in almost any situation by utilising one of three homeConnect versions: Lite, Cellular or Business Broadband.

LITE Designed for scenarios where connectivity is deemed sufficient, but the benefits of the Managed homeConnect Router and WiFi service are required. In this instance, Mobliciti engineers will connect the Managed Router into the existing home connection. Once implemented it provides peace of mind that the work network is both firewalled from the home network and that the home network remains private to work.

CELLULAR Delivered over 4G/5G on the best available network between Three, Vodafone or O2 but crucially able to deliver up to 10x faster speeds than Mi-Fi or phone tethering. homeConnect Cellular bypasses the issue of ‘last mile’ and infrastructure connectivity problems. Mobliciti offers a full 4G/5G survey and installation as part of the service, ensuring that best results are achieved. The service is enhanced through external or internal hardware offerings to deliver business-grade connectivity.

BUSINESS BROADBAND Where sufficient 4G/5G signal is not available, Mobliciti can provide homeConnect Business Broadband. We provide options to either connect the Broadband service on an existing line or provide a second line in addition to the Broadband. A full installation of the homeConnect Router and associated Broadband modem into the home is offered as a part of the service.

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