When Glenn Garbelman, VP of Access Architecture at Lumen Technologies (formerly CenturyLink), thinks about the new normal, he looks at how work from home has affected his experience and considers solutions
from there.

“Traditionally, my home network is IoT, a little bit of emails, some surfing, some gaming, and a few other things,” Garbelman says. “Now, this connection is full-time work and has been since March. That sets us up into a hybrid service environment. One of the challenges is just that.”

Garbelman, like roughly 40% of full-time employees in America, has been working from home since the pandemic began in March of 2020. And much like the experience of 62 million teleworkers, Garbelman’s home network was not optimized for business-level activity.

“Previously, on a Saturday or Sunday night, I’d plug into the VPN, download some emails and get a little ahead on work,” Garbelman says. “Now this is just 24/7, and it’s combined with the home experience. The environment has changed dramatically, and we need to respond to that.”