Working From Home: Tips to maximizing your bandwidth

Like many of you, we are working remotely as a company following the declaration of the COVID-19 national emergency. As previously stated, Systems Engineering is well prepared to continue working and supporting our customers during this time. As expected, the morning began with higher than usual support request volume. Many customers began their work from home experiences for the first time, and we were able to get them up and working along with our regularly scheduled services.  

However, we must note that our supply chain is being challenged.  With the shutdown in China, we started to see hardware delays two weeks ago. Now, with the rush to address work from home needs, our distributors are becoming overwhelmed with hardware orders, especially for laptop and software orders.   

As we settle into our home offices, many of us will use web meeting tools such as Microsoft Teams and Cisco WebEx, to meet both internally and externally. These robust collaboration solutions have several features that can help keep us productive in the coming weeks. In order to have a good online meeting experience, here is some guidance around Internet bandwidth to help you participate in these meetings successfully.

Maximize Your Bandwidth

Earlier this month, the major carriers and internet service providers (ISPs) reported that they have plenty of bandwidth on their backbones (the major inter-city, inter-data center, connections). From the carrier and ISPs perspective, it is a matter of where that traffic originates from that is changing.  

• Where issues may arise will be in what’s called the “last-mile.” This is the connection from the carrier’s backbone to your home or office. Since so many are now working from home, on consumer-grade connections, you may experience bandwidth constraints or even brief outages from time to time.
• Other issues can arise in your home and on your home Wi-Fi network. With children and grandchildren out of school, the number of devices and what they are doing on those devices could significantly impact your experience. For example, if you are involved in a voice/video call using your home network, while other household individuals are streaming music, gaming, and watching 4k high-def movies, this could significantly impact your experience.
• If you are experiencing a bad audio connection on a web meeting, it could be the Bluetooth headphones you are using. Make sure they are fully charged and your connection is good. You may need to forget and re-connect the headset in your Bluetooth settings.
• Finally, if you have the basic plan with your ISP, consider upgrading to higher bandwidth. It could resolve unexpected bandwidth challenges.

Following these tips, will help you to maximize your bandwidth while working from home. If you have questions, please reach out to your Systems Engineering Account Manager. You can also connect with us at 888.624.6737 or info@systemsengineering.com. 

Mark Benton is the Director of Product Management at Systems Engineering. He has over 30 years of experience in Information Technology and is responsible for overseeing the onboarding of new products and services for Systems Engineering and its customers.  

Stay current on the news and events to keep your remote workforce productive and secure by visiting our COVID-19 Resource Portal.