Comcast Business has unveiled a new business Ethernet service to provide employees working from home with secure connectivity to their corporate network. The new Ethernet @Home service, which is delivered over Comcast's hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) network, allows business customers such as financial and healthcare institutions to extend private links to their corporate networks to doctors, professors, and analysts who work from home.
Representing "a dramatic expansion of Ethernet service availability," Ethernet @Home is an option for IT departments looking to connect employees as part of a comprehensive Ethernet network service, according to Comcast.
According to recent estimates from Global Workplace Analytics, approximately 50% of the US workforce holds a job that is compatible with at least part-time work from home. Also, the Telework Research Network report "The State of Telework in the U.S." forecasts that full-time teleworkers are expected to increase to nearly five million by 2016, an increase of almost 70%. Comcast's Ethernet @Home addresses this trend as businesses look to extend connectivity to employees working from home using a unified Ethernet network that offers simplified monitoring and management for IT.
?"In healthcare, the network is crucial. A key role of healthcare IT is to ensure that clinicians have uninterrupted access to images, EMRs, and other information to care for patients when and where needed," said Jayashree Raman, vice president and chief information officer for Cooper University Health Care. "Comcast's Ethernet @Home gives our radiologists the ability to quickly and securely review images and patient files from their homes over Cooper's private network, letting them provide the best care for their patients in a timely manner."
Comcast says the new Ethernet @Home service is quick to install with low construction costs and efficient integration with fiber-based end points of a customer's existing Comcast Business Ethernet service. Available in multiple service types, Ethernet @Home is designed to address a variety of use cases, including healthcare physicians and employees working from home; IT network and application managers needing secure access to the cloud or other corporate IT assets to monitor and address service issues at night or on weekends; and secure, private connectivity for executives for accessing the corporate network from their homes.
"As the hours and locations of today's modern workplace become increasingly flexible, business are spending too much time addressing connectivity issues due to a poor user experience or log-in errors with their VPNs or remote desktop services over the public Internet, resulting in frustrated and unproductive employees working from home," said Scott Cassell, senior director, enterprise data and IP, Comcast Business. "As part of our strategy to offer Ethernet everywhere, Ethernet @Home helps eliminate that complexity and provides a user experience for employees at home that is the same as if they were at work – their corporate network is just there and available – opening up secure, high-performance teleworking options for more workers."
The Ethernet @Home service is generally available across the Comcast Business footprint. Ethernet @Home comes in Ethernet Dedicated Internet (EDI), Ethernet Private Line (EPL), and Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL) service types at symmetric bandwidth speeds up to 10 Mbps backed by a service-level agreement.
For more information on Carrier Ethernet equipment and suppliers, visit the Lightwave Buyer's Guide.
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