Bringing Home the Business

There was good news for business this week as Virgin Media said it would be offering 150mbps broadband to customers next year. This really ups the ante for BT, which has been slowly rolling out its 21st Century Network (21CN). It also demonstrates that competition in the broadband provision space really does help develop digital media, which depends heavily on broadband Internet to accommodate the huge data levels involved.

Those kinds of speeds for download now will further help the growth of home-working for companies and employees, especially within the digital sector. I know a digital marketing agency which is based in a pretty grotty part of London, but they have an incredible client list because they hire amazing staff – due, in part, to the fact that they can work from home.

Home working is appealing to many firms as it reduces real estate and power overheads, attracts staff and, one could argue, improves efficiency (as the need to commute is also cut). 150mbps download speeds will bring a whole suit of applications that will allow digital professionals to work even more efficiently from home.

To be truly useful to home-workers though, it’s not just the download speed that will be important, but additionally how quickly you can upload data. No one has been shouting about the upload speeds which, to my mind, are always slightly misleading and frustrating for those looking to use the bandwidth to do anything more proactive, such as upload a home video.  

However, assuming that the upload speed is at a level to be useful for teleworking, with the broadband and the applications that will undoubtedly be developed, digital workers just need the motivation and self-discipline to get on with their job, and we may start to see what a virtual office for the masses just might look like.

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