Despite the state of the global economy, our industry would still be robust. The results of a survey of 1,750 executive IT and corporate strategy leaders published by FiberLight show that approximately 88% of respondents are still investing in high-bandwidth network services. They listed data centers, cloud, and Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) as their top priorities.
The growth of cutting-edge applications like 5G and IoT, artificial intelligence (AI), and virtual reality is what is driving this investment, according to FiberLight. Other important aspects include the development of remote and hybrid work styles as well as the rise in demand for cloud computing, where businesses are moving all or some of their applications to the cloud.
“Despite the growing concerns of a potential recession and layoffs, businesses are continuing to move forward with plans for fast, secure, and reliable Internet access,” said Ron Kormos, Chief Strategy Officer at FiberLight. “Data center strategy has been and continues to be a major driver for connectivity. We have consistently seen a demand for this connectivity and anticipate this will continue. We also anticipate additional growth in cloud computing needs.”
Cloud-Based Software
Today, a large number of enterprises either use the cloud to operate their businesses or are preparing to do so. These firms would need cloud-based software because it allows workers to operate from any location while managing the challenges of redundancy, software upgrades, and data storage. Unified Communications and Collaboration (Zoom, Webex, Teams, etc.: 22% of respondents), Security SaaS (22% of respondents), CRM SaaS (18% of respondents), and other SaaS applications are among the cloud applications that executives reported hosting.
Only 27% of executives indicated their investments would be concentrated in rural regions, while roughly 29% said they would be concentrated in suburban areas. A little over 43% of executives stated their investments would be concentrated in metropolitan metro geographic areas. This illustrates how neglected rural regions still are.
Organizations would require quick, highly-secure, and reliable choices, which are not frequently accessible in rural regions, in today’s dynamic market where employees are working from anywhere in the world through remote work, hybrid work, and return-to-office efforts. These possibilities include access to different cloud service providers, connectivity to their own data center, and private network connectivity such as dark fiber or private ethernet networks.
In this survey by FiberLight, executives were also asked about their top priority for connectivity upgrades, and they said that security upgrades and speed/low latency enhancements were close behind. Due to the fact that so much of today’s organizational data and information is stored in the cloud, more security is required.
“FiberLight is focused on expanding our footprint and expanding the edge closer to customer locations in order to facilitate new applications that address both latency and security,” said Jay Anderson, CTO and Chief Engineer at FiberLight. “Additionally, FiberLight is continuing to improve our monitoring and management tools to provide greater visibility into network performance which will result in a stronger customer experience.”
“The survey is consistent with much of what FiberLight is experiencing in today’s very dynamic market where people are working in numerous ways-either on-site, remotely, or a combination of the two. They want robust, highly-secure-even private-services to support their network strategy, and especially in underserved rural and suburban geographies,” said Peter Gallagher, Chief Operating Officer (COO) at FiberLight. “FiberLight is well positioned to serve today’s market and those customers who want reliable connectivity to their own data center, robust access to multiple Cloud Service Providers, or highly-secure, private network connectivity.”
The poll was carried out in December 2022 by FiberLight, a fiber infrastructure business that creates and manages high-bandwidth networks. IT and corporate strategy executives who mostly work for businesses in the technology software/services industry made up the 1,750 poll respondents, while respondents represented businesses across a range of sectors.
Most survey responders are employed by businesses with at least 500 personnel. The majority of respondents (41%) stated that their company supports applications using a hybrid cloud approach, which combines elements from on-premises data centers and those hosted in the cloud. A little over 36% of businesses employ a cloud data center approach.
