Internet bandwidth may not meet demand during pandemic, warns Gartner
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With flu on the horizon, analyst Gartner is urging manufacturers to get pandemic plans in place, but warning that work-at-home strategies may be in jeopardy.
According to the Centre for Disease Control, the rule of thumb for pandemic planning is that 40% of the workforce will not be in the workplace for an extended period of time.
"All of the telecommunications carriers say their WANs can handle the added capacity of a 40% increase. That's fine for their backbone network, but the problem lies in what is referred to as the 'edge' or 'last mile' in the residential Internet access loop," advises Eric Paulak, managing vice president at Gartner.
"Within the switching office, surges in demand will overload the local connection to the backbone networks, because carriers typically do not design for excess residential capacity."
Working at home usage typically takes place in the daytime, when consumer traffic is low. However, during a pandemic consumer Internet usage will happen at the same time, mainly because children will be home from school and using the Internet.
DSL users are vulnerable to oversubscription, a condition in which potentially dozens of users share a single digital subscriber access multiplexer (DSLAM) connection to the backbone. This is not easy to remedy during an unexpected surge in last-mile demand, warns Paulak.
"The bottom line is that the last-mile DSL and cable modem networks are where remote access falls apart. Backbones will be affected, but the network edge will crash. The carriers are encouraging organisations to use 3G or other non-tethered access as a backup solution," comments John Girard, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.
"However, this could lead to wireless system overload, so the problem is not solved, it is merely moved. Therefore, enterprises need to consider all three Internet access solutions when trying to work out what performs best in a given emergency situation," he adds.
Gartner suggests three possible alternatives: deploy software WAN optimisation controllers (WOCs) on every laptop to help mitigate bandwidth and latency issues; use client applets that work with data centre-resident application delivery controllers or WOCs to improve browser speed; or bypass the wired last mile altogether and switch to a wireless connection, such as 3G, WiMAX, or satellite.
