DETROIT – To meet customer demands, Internet service providers, in general, are now doubling network speeds every two years?while at the same time, significantly reducing the costs of this faster bandwidth.
Having greater bandwidth at lower cost is important to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). It gives them?for the first time?the ability to compete successfully against large enterprises with greater capabilities and deeper pockets. It enables them to access the tools and technologies enterprises have long claimed as their own and to run applications that, until now, their slower bandwidths couldn?t handle.
Today, SMBs? need to further increase their bandwidth and to do so at even lower costs is underscored by three emerging trends.
Going Mobile
Fewer people are buying desktop computers. They?re turning instead to laptops, tablets, and smartphones they can use just about anywhere. With millions of apps for these mobile devices, people are doing all the tasks that, until recently, required a large, cumbersome computer that now just gathers dust.
It seems as if everyone is going mobile?the staggering 50 percent annual increase in the number of mobile devices connecting to Comcast?s national network is not uncommon. At the rate mobile is growing, the number of devices that will be connected to IP networks in just a few years will be almost three times larger than the global population. This growth means that if SMBs stop increasing their bandwidth at today?s speeds, their employees and/or customers will soon be unable to upload or download the information they need.
Moving into the Cloud
Many SMBs (like larger enterprises) are shifting from using applications stored on their local-area networks to using services, such as SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS, provided by third-party vendors. These cloud-based services are rented (and the cost incurred as an operating expense) rather than bought like traditional applications. They have no associated purchasing, storage or maintenance costs. So, they are much more affordable for SMBs. But, they also require much greater bandwidth than traditional applications.
Mining big data
The move into the cloud?with its more cost-effective access to both services and the storage of large amounts of data?is pushing into high gear another major trend: big data. With the cloud and bandwidth more affordable than ever before, SMBs can capture, store, and analyze multiple terabytes of data about their customers, businesses, and competitors, extracting the needed information that can significantly improve their operations and results. The emergence of big data is, in turn, further driving the need for much more bandwidth at a lower cost.
These three trends are fast moving beyond just being ?interesting? to SMBs. They are starting to drive new operations and ways of doing business. And SMBs seeking to lead their industries can gain a competitive advantage by adapting to them?and by continuously updating their bandwidth as the need for faster speed further increases.
