Kevin McNicholas, an information technology executive with a keen focus on connectivity, bandwidth, and latency, joins Phil and Nabeel at the #NomadFuturist podcast. Kevin discusses the current state of economy and technology during #covid19 and what we need to do to ensure business continuity through this turmoil. Remote employee count has increased significantly within the last 30 days to curtail the spread of #Coronavirusm; additionally we are seeing a significant increase in live streaming, social media, increasing network traffic, and putting the networks to test everyday.
Having information at your fingertips is imperative; this is the culture today. Latency and bandwidth have become critical. Where do we go from here? Will 5G solve the problem, what is the future of computing and the definition of the new normal? Will major content distributors throttling down their services be enough to support the network, or will further changes in the infrastructure be needed?
“The internet is not just one thing; it’s like a living breathing human with lots of different neurons and connection points working to keep it alive.” Though that infrastructure has enough capacity for now to deal with the coronavirus-triggered surge in demand, there could be trouble ahead. The uncertainty going forward is not knowing how long the pandemic and the global shutdowns it has caused will last.
Another potential issue will be around net neutrality, the belief that network providers shouldn’t slow down certain web services or prioritize specific types of traffic.
