The Fibre Council Global Alliance Reveals Broadband Infrastructure is Critical to the Future of Work-From-Home

Research explores WFH experiences and the technology that supported or failed to support remote employees

WASHINGTON & BRUSSELS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Fibre Council Global Alliance (FCGA) today published a white paper titled “The Future of Work: Analyzing Global Broadband Trends.” The report explores survey research conducted by the six regional chapters of the FCGA, which includes the Fiber Broadband Association North America and LATAM chapters, FTTH Council Europe, FTTH Council Asia Pacific, North Africa and Middle East Fiber Connect Council and the Digital Council Africa, to better understand the quality of experience businesses and employees faced while working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic and how those experiences differed across global regions. The research considered what broadband technology was used most by home workers and what technology investments businesses made to support remote employees.

The Future of Work white paper illustrates interesting regional differences as well as several areas of global alignment. The research reveals that a business’ ability to maintain work-from-home (WFH) policies post-pandemic is linked to three factors:

1. Whether employees are involved in production of equipment/service that requires on premises presence;
2. Whether the right IT tools are in place to support WFH; and
3. Whether employees have sufficient internet access to maintain productivity. The third factor is important, considering internet bandwidth was reported as the biggest WFH issue, and respondents further indicated that current cable-supplied internet speeds are insufficient. Latin American respondents indicated the highest overall bandwidth constraints, followed by North America, Asia Pacific, Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa.

“While remote workforce trends have been growing over the last decade, the pandemic made work-from-home a necessity overnight. As we expected, our survey results demonstrate that global broadband networks struggled to keep up with this demand,” said Deborah Kish, Vice President of Research and Marketing at the Fiber Broadband Association. “Fibre is critical to eliminating these broadband struggles. A fibre broadband network offers the best performance in speed, latency, reliability and end-user experience than any other type of broadband network.”

The FCGA will present its findings in a webinar on Tuesday, July 13, at 10:00am EDT. Panelists include:

• FBA President & CEO Gary Bolton,
• FBA LATAM Chapter President Nelson Hiroshi Saito,
• Digital Council Africa CEO & FCGA Chair Juanita Clark,
• Fiber Connect Council MENA Director General Kholoud Al Dorgham,
• FTTH Council Europe Director General Vincent Garnier, and
• FTTH Council Asia Pacific Manager Rusafie Alam.

To register for the webinar, please visit FBA Future of Work Webinar Registration.

About the Fibre Council Global Alliance

The Fibre Council Global Alliance is a platform of six global FTTH Councils in the Americas, LATAM, Europe, MENA, and APAC.