Network Infrastructure: How Is It Impacted by COVID-19?

Jorge de la Fuente

Apr 7, 2020

By Jorge de la Fuente

If connectivity wasn’t already increasing at a rapid pace, then the COVID-19 pandemic has spurred even faster growth. The examples below are just a few of the seismic shifts occurring in communication, interaction and collaboration over the past few weeks:

• Healthcare is quickly moving toward telehealth vs. in-person visits when possible
• K-12 schools and universities are now conducting coursework 100% online so students can continue to learn at home
• Many companies are now supporting hundreds or thousands of newly remote employees
• Dorms and hotels are being transformed into makeshift isolation or patient areas that require new types of connectivity

We’re ordering groceries 100% online, streaming more HD content as we self-isolate, and even celebrating birthdays and anniversaries from afar. Without physical and face-to-face contact, connectivity naturally accelerates — more by force than by pleasure. In the span of a few weeks, social distancing has led us to rethink — and change — how we live day by day.

Once things begin to return to “normal,” it’s likely that some of the new habits we created out of necessity during this pandemic will lead to changes moving forward, too. This global emergency has given us all the opportunity to discover — and re-discover — the advantages of the digital world.

In order to take full advantage of this connectivity, however, you need a network and cabling infrastructure in place to support it. Your layer 0 must be reliable, able to maximize throughput and able to ensure uptime.

Today, this requires singlemode fibre (OS2) and multimode fibre (OM4) cable, as well as Category 6A solutions, to increase information capacity and bandwidth. The organizations that have this infrastructure in place can rest easy knowing that technology, systems and applications will work as they should — regardless of how many people or devices need to connect. Those with outdated cabling infrastructure are likely noticing network slowdowns, dropped connections, bottlenecks and even certain times of day when applications aren’t usable at all.

This sudden increase in demand is undoubtedly stressing data centres the most. Whether you think about data centres that support essential infrastructure such as financial institutions or convenience stores — or the data centres that host the streaming content we’re all watching every night at home — none of this connectivity would be possible without a reliable, dependable, high-performing data centre. Data centres that could previously handle the influx of inbound and outbound network traffic being received every day now have to manage increasing numbers of requests.

More than ever, it’s clear that a robust, reliable and high-performance infrastructure is needed to keep people connected to data — and to each other. It’s vital to remote work, online learning, emergency communications, healthcare and much more.

Data centres are intensive users of fibre optic cable — and that usage is growing. As data centre speeds increase, cable performance becomes increasingly critical to ensure link quality — which is why fibre is becoming crucial.

Belden has developed new fibre solutions in recent months that allow data centres to create the robust, reliable and high-performance infrastructure we’re talking about — without compromising on performance or ease of use.

Joining Belden in 2015, Jorge de la Fuente has more than 30 years of experience in providing network and data centre solutions to end-users across a variety of markets. In this role, he oversees functionality of our enterprise/data centre connectivity solutions, sharing his extensive knowledge with customers and Belden employees to help assess needs, troubleshoot and determine system requirements.

Source 

Related Articles


Latest Articles


Changing Scene

  • Skills Ontario Supports Ontario’s Investments in Skilled Trades in Budget Announcement

    Skills Ontario Supports Ontario’s Investments in Skilled Trades in Budget Announcement

    March 28. 2024 As demand for skilled trades professionals rises, Skills Ontario is commending the government for continued investments in skilled trades and technology programing, working to address the shortfall and need to build the workforce of the future in Ontario.  The skilled trades shortage is costing Ontario approximately $25 billion in foregone GDP. A… Read More…

  • IVRY Launches 7 New VR Lessons

    IVRY Launches 7 New VR Lessons

     IVRY Technologies, a division of IDEAL Electrical, is launching seven new virtual reality (VR) lessons in Canada as part of its Virtual Electrical Training (VET) Series 2 training module. The cutting-edge training will serve as a learning resource for International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) training centers across Canada. Read More…

  • PEI Budget 2024 Signals Continued Focus on Healthcare, Housing and Affordability for all Islanders 

    PEI Budget 2024 Signals Continued Focus on Healthcare, Housing and Affordability for all Islanders 

    March 28, 2024 Hon. Jill Burridge, Minister of Finance, presented government’s 2024-25 operating budget to the legislative assembly, outlining $3.2 billion in investments for Prince Edward Island with a continued focus on healthcare, housing and affordability measures. “This budget signals where we’re headed as a province and shows Islanders where we will be making key… Read More…

  • BC’s Budget 2024 Prioritizes Actions for Low-Carbon Economy

    BC’s Budget 2024 Prioritizes Actions for Low-Carbon Economy

    March 28, 2024 Josie Osborne, Minister of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation, and Brittny Anderson, MLA for Nelson-Creston, met with community climate leaders in Nelson to discuss how Budget 2024 can help support people in the region to transition to a low-carbon economy and meet shared CleanBC goals. “Our government’s budget this year reflects the… Read More…