New Normal: Companies Roll Out Contingency Plans in Face of Covid-19

摘要

With a growing number of students and employees working from home, it’s mission critical for the nation’s broadbandproviders during the Covid-19 pandemic. Operators big and small are up-ending their day-to-day operations to ensurethe safety of their employees while continuing to service their customers. On Thursday, Cox began remotely managingits network operations center—a first for the MSO. Cox, which closed down a Rhode Island facility last week for a deepclean after an employee’s family member tested positive for the virus, has also increased teleworking and is sendingregular communications of CDC guidelines to customer-facing employees. Hotwire Communications, a midsize providerthat’s footprint includes Florida, Georgia, SC and NC, has 10 network operations center engineers identified ascritical who are being voluntarily quarantined in offsite housing for seven-day periods. The NOC/engineering/IT area isopen only to authorized personnel, with a dedicated entrance and restrooms. Like many other companies, Mediacomhas been increasing its remote work capacity at a larger scale and for a longer period of time. WOW! has developedpandemic plans over the last several weeks. “Although many of our workers already have the ability to work from home,we are currently exploring contingency plans for essential workers who don’t typically have a work-from-home option,”the company said. It’s a similar story for Cable ONE, which already has a subset of call center personnel positioned towork from home. “We’re looking at additional options and making plans as needed to expand that capability if it becomesnecessary in the coming days and weeks,” a rep said. Industry HR association C2HR has curated a collectionof resources from employers in its online Knowledge Center, and will update articles regularly. C2HR said that manyof its members are implementing work-from-home policies, with one industry employer to soon announce a companywidework-from-home policy. In addition to suspending non- essential business travel, employers are requiring employeesto report all personal travel plans. Employees who have/will travel to high-risk countries are being instructed tostay home for 14 days upon their return to the US. As for concerns over internet overload, the Internet Society posteda recent blog reassuring folks that core internet infrastructure providers should be able to easily absorb an increase intraffic and demand, especially if the growth is gradual over a period of days, weeks or months. NCTA said that to date,its members in areas most affected by the outbreak have reported “modest, but manageable changes” in consumer internet usage. “We remain vigilant in monitoring and managing network performance around the clock and are confidentthat our networks will perform well in adapting to any changes in consumer behavior that may result as a consequenceof a community’s response to Covid-19,” the cable group said. That aligns with what Charter is seeing. “Ournetwork is built to sustain maximum capacity during peak usage, which is typically in the evenings, so a surge duringthe day would be well within our capabilities to manage,” a Charter spokesperson said. “We also offer a low-cost, highspeedbroadband program for low-income households to help them get online. Charter continues to closely monitor thesituation and has business and workforce continuity plans in place and will adjust these plans as appropriate to bestserve all our customers.” Verizon said it has not seen a measurable increase in data usage, adding that its networksare designed and built to meet future demand and are ready should demand increase or usage patterns change significantly.On Thursday, Verizon announced that it is increasing its capital guidance range from $17bln-$18bln to $17.5bln-$18.5bin in 2020 to accelerate its transition to 5G and “help support the economy during this period of disruption.”Altice USA said it understands the importance of keeping people connected. “We have been investing in technologyand increasing network capacity to meet the growing demands of our ‘always online’ culture, and this includes havingin place proper contingency plans to ensure service continuity for our customers,” an Altice USA spokesperson said.