An
extremely popular program in the modern office is "bring your own
device" (BYOD), where companies allow their employees to bring their
personal devices to work and use them to do their job. A survey by
Fiberlink revealed that 64 percent of businesses polled allow employees
to use their personal smartphones and/or tablet devices for work
purposes. And with good reason. "The benefits of BYOD include creating
new mobile workforce opportunities, increasing employee satisfaction,
and reducing or avoiding costs," says David Willis, vice president and
analyst at Gartner.
But while BYOD may be benefiting your staff,
it can also be harming the performance of your corporate wireless
network. It's important to understand all the ways BYOD can affect your
IT strategy before integrating it into your business.
Many
people bring more than one device to the office with them: a smartphone
and a tablet or notebook. According to Forrester Research, 66 percent of
employees use two or more devices at work. These devices can tax a
network, putting a strain on it and seriously disrupting its
performance. The more devices accessing a network, the greater the
possibility of bottlenecks that slow your network to a crawl. In order
to prevent severe burdens on your bandwidth, it is important to control
the number and types of mobile devices accessing your network.
Managing
your bandwidth can be accomplished through a combination of technology
and policy – protect the performance of your network through network
access control and traffic shaping, as well as policies dictating things
such as where they can access your network, at what times, and which
applications can be run. It is essential that your employees understand
how their devices can impact the performance of your network. According
to a survey by research firm Ipsos MORI, only 23 percent of office
workers are aware of their organization’s BYOD policy.
Your IT
and network provider should be equipped to provide you with flexible and
effective products to handle increases to your demand for bandwidth. Contact us today to learn more about taking control of your company’s bandwidth consumption.
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