Team Partners Telecommunications

Adapting your phone systems to part-remote working

Posted on Sep 23, 2020  | Tags: remote working, home worker, WFH

There’s something extraordinary and rather wonderful about the timing of life. So many things only happen because something else has happened before them…things without which the present would look very different. 

Maybe an explanation would help! Had the present pandemic happened 30 years’ ago we would have had to have dealt with it very differently. All of us are tending to take broadband and its benefits very much for granted. We’re Skyping and Zooming like old hands, yet how many years do we have to go back to find a time when the very idea of being able to see someone as you spoke to them was SciFi nonsense? Thirty years ago many of us would have felt extremely isolated had lockdown been introduced, we would have had our landlines, we could have made calls, but not much more, unless we were in an office with telex and fax.

Why this review? Well, taking this a further step, it’s likely that 30 years ago we’d have been chomping at the bit to get back to the office, certainly because we’d have been cut -off from each other, but also, and just as importantly, because it would have been unthinkable to have continued in business working from home. Whether it would have been possible to change an office based business to be run from homes is a moot point, what is certainly the case is that it just would not have occurred to anyone to sound the death knell of the office, it was just too much a part of our lives. As was the daily commute. 

Viva broadband!! Even ten years ago a lot of us would have struggled with poor broadband availability and slow speeds…indeed there’ll be those reading this who’ll immediately chime in with a grunt that nothing’s changed and fast broadband is still a future dream for them. For the majority of us however, whilst often not living up to our supplier’s promises (something we can help you with), our broadband availability and speed has given us the ability to upload and download documents, have Zoom / Skype conversations and generally run things from home. Broadband has been a timely lifesaver. And it’s being a lifesaver in more ways than one. Imagine for a moment what would have happened had everyone decided that a return to the office was the only option. Imagine how the Coronavirus would have spread if we’d insisted in getting on those trains and into the Underground. It’s not a happy thought, but it is worth thinking of how timing is everything!

We end this blog with a few tips for working from home:

• See if you can get a more suitable broadband package for work use, again, we can help.
  
  
• Connect your computer to your WiFi router using a cable. You’ll be surprised by the difference this can make.
  
  
• Limit the other devices in your home that use broadband, they’re “draining” your connection.
  
  
• If you share your Broadband with other households you may have to time your larger uploads and downloads to times when others are less likely to be online, again.

But here’s our top tip! Get in touch with us and ask us to check what the fastest broadband is in your area. We’ll be able to help you make the most of what’s available.