"Just throw more bandwidth at it" - Yeah right... Some people never learn!

One of my classic mantras of the past, ooh er, 30+ years has been “throwing bandwidth at a problem doesn’t solve the problem”.

So, you would think all those decades later that the penny had dropped within the IT community. But it seems it still hasn’t, according to a report published by Cloudbrink: “2025 Trends In Hybrid Work”, where the results of a survey showed that  over 82% of IT and security professionals still don’t understand the significance of packet loss. This, despite an entire library of test reports written by yours truly – including one last year for Cloudbrink – over the years showing scientific proof of how packet loss, latency, jitter and other network nasties can savage performance, REGARDLESS of the amount of bandwidth on tap.

The report, which is available here: https://cloudbrink.com/trends-in-work-from-anywhere/

as well as showing that packet loss is the number one reason of loss of work from anywhere productivity, highlights how many fears companies have about the hybrid workplace are completely unfounded. The report notes that, while some organisations fear work-from-anywhere employees may put in less time than those sitting in physical offices, data suggests they work longer and harder. As someone who has primarily worked from home for over three decades, but still has experience of onsite working from time to time, I absolutely concur with these findings. Regardless of the industry, if a job needs doing it needs doing. If an individual can get that job done as quickly and efficiently as possible – without human distraction and interruption – then they will. Another major problem, it seems, is that IT universally underestimates the impact of security solutions on business performance and user experience, according to the surveyed parties.

Going back to our starting point here, the report notes that participants overlook the huge impact that packet loss has on application performance and, therefore, user productivity, particularly when combined with the latency commonly introduced by security tools – again, an observation I’ve personally encountered regularly throughout my testing over the years. That ignorance manifests itself in IT continuing to apply expensive, ineffective “solutions” in an attempt to solve these performance and productivity issues and – in also trying to reduce operational complexity. – finding that they have just made their network deployment even more complicated to manage. And slower.

Here are some other key findings from the Cloudbrink report:

51.3% noted remote work is now just work. More than half of all respondents say 40% or more of their employees work remotely at least one day each week.

69.3% realised their organisations’ security capabilities negatively impact performance. However, findings suggest professionals don’t understand the full impact or – more importantly – how to fix it.

29.5% of organisations lack the ability to consistently pinpoint the source of performance issues. As a result, the fixes IT are most likely to apply do not align with the underlying causes of performance problems. Visibility is king.

78.5% noted maintaining and supporting current remote access solutions is demanding and resource intensive. Respondents also find solutions cumbersome and costly to roll out.

94% of organisations surveyed plan to invest in improving or upgrading their secure remote access solutions. A quarter actually plan a complete replacement within 12 months.

We will no doubt be revisiting many of these pain points over the next few months but, meantime, I suggest you download and read the report, even if it’s only to empathise with others in your position: “I told them it wouldn’t work and would cost a fortune, but would they believe me…?”