You're Working From Home. AT&T Wants to Help Your Internet Handle It With a New Enterprise-Level Solution

The work-from-home trend has been accelerated by the COVID-19 virus. With some 62 percent of employed Americans working remotely during the pandemic, it’s also led to connectivity challenges for some folks who may be competing with kids or spouses for bandwidth. AT&T Business wants to help.

The Dallas-headquartered organization has created an enterprise-grade internet connectivity solution that businesses can offer to their remote employees. The new service, called Home Office Connectivity, is the first solution designed to provide business-paid internet access for workers at home, AT&T said in a statement.

Through their employers, people working from home could use an enterprise-grade connection. It’s not an ordinary internet connection, according to the AT&T website. The high-speed internet for enterprise package can give people higher reliability, faster speed, and improved security through an independent internet connection.

While some companies are beginning to bring employees back to the office, others are not. It seems AT&T has an eye on the work-from-home trend, The company cites the 2020 State of Remote Work report from Buffer and Angel list, which notes that 98 percent of remote workers surveyed would like to work remotely, at least some of the time, for the rest of their careers.

“Attitudes about working from home are changing, but the cultural shift is only part of the equation. Businesses need tools to succeed in the new environment,” Mo Katibeh, CMO and EVP of AT&T Business, said in a statement.

Offerings that are usually available only to AT&T’s business customers such as AT&T’s Internet Backup for failover, Global Security Gateway for additional security, and Static IP addressing, can now be used in residential areas through Home Office Connectivity, with the internet able to reach speeds up to one gigabit per second with no data caps.

The package is completely separate from a consumer internet connection that an employee may already have in place.

No matter the size of the business, it can use Home Office Connectivity for its employees, the company says. AT&T offers single-number customer care for businesses through the package, as well as professional on-site installations by certified AT&T technicians. AT&T says it can also help with onboarding and management with consolidated invoicing.

Not only does the independent internet connection help employees, it can help their families, too, by lowering the number of people on their regular home connection.

“The COVID-19 pandemic that has forced governments across the globe to order citizens to stay at home and follow physical isolation has further highlighted the benefits of remote working,” Roopa Honnachari, industry director at Frost & Sullivan, said in a report.

“However, as remote workers compete for bandwidth with kids attending virtual classrooms and others at home trying to stream entertainment videos, optimizing and prioritizing business applications on home networks has become critical during the current crisis.”

During the ongoing pandemic, AT&T has partnered with companies to create tech-enabled solutions. In April, AT&T collaborated with Brain Corp to support data-rich Internet of Things (IoT) applications for autonomous mobile robots that perform tasks such as cleaning, delivering inventory, and providing shelf analytics. AT&T has also teamed up with Xenex to equip the company’s germ-zapping robots with IoT connectivity.

AT&T joined the Keep Americans Connected Pledge along with more than 750 service providers, which helps to “ensure that Americans do not lose their broadband or telephone connectivity” during the current circumstances.