Data and network traffic: How well supported is the work-from-home culture?

The lockdown scenarios have forced organizations to move out of their workplaces and take work to their respective homes. This sudden adoption of Work-from-Home (WFH) at a wider scale has led to a spike in data network traffic. This leads to a quality- check on India's IT infrastructure health for managing the WFH scenario seamlessly. Is the country ready for further extension to such norms?

“The network and data infrastructure in India is not robust enough to address or support 100% WFH or remote working during Covid-19 like situations. The companies may have proper infrastructure to support remote access from anywhere but general WIFI or phone networks at remote locations are not always up and running to support continuity in work. During situations like this WFH users are also working on their own devices and multiple remote working apps. On top of it they are also not fully secure as users lack the understanding of secure access. The infrastructure on both data and network traffic has to be further strengthened to support users, companies and businesses communicate hassle free. The current situation should give us a lot of learning and investment thoughts to create better data and network infrastructure,” said Ashok Kumar, founder and managing director, RAH Infotech

Apart from the other challenges that this scenario has thrown up for companies, several employees do not even have access to basic necessities required during this phase such as a laptop and even a good Internet connection. What’s more, even if employees wish to purchase these items during the lockdown it would not be possible as they are not included under essentials.

“India is not geared up for an extended and widespread WFH scenario. We have seen instances where people do not even have a laptop to work-from-home since they use a workstation at the office, added to this WIFI connectivity is yet another challenge which has a long way to go for a WFH to become the new normal. But what I believe is that this 40-day lockdown would have served as a forced pilot for most organizations to understand which part of their workforce can actually work-from-home in an effective manner,” said Prashanth GJ, CEO, TechnoBind.

Nevertheless, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister for IT and Telecom, in a video conference with IT ministers of all states said that he would soon have a video conference call with IT industry leaders to discuss the problems they were facing during the lockdown period. The minister also stated that a national-level strategy committee would be set-up to prepare detailed guidelines and solutions for a pandemic situation like COVID-19.

Furthermore, the minister has extended the relaxation in terms and conditions for virtual private network (VPN) until 31 July 2020 to help IT professionals working from home. He also took into account the fact that there was a need to strengthen Internet services in the country as nearly 80 percent of professionals are working from home. He stated that measures would be taken to do so through BharatNet.