The findings show that nearly 88% of respondents said they are still investing in high-bandwidth network services and cited data centers, cloud, and dedicated internet access (DIA) are their biggest priorities.
Driving this investment is the proliferation of emerging technologies like 5G and IoT, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality, as well as the continued growth of remote and hybrid work models and in cloud computing where enterprises are migrating all or a portion of their applications to the cloud.
“Despite the growing concerns of a potential recession and layoffs, businesses are continuing to move forward with plans for fast, secure, and reliable internet access,” said Ron Kormos, chief strategy officer at FiberLight.
“Data center strategy has been and continues to be a major driver for connectivity. We have consistently seen a demand for this connectivity and anticipate this will continue. We also anticipate additional growth in cloud computing needs.”
Just over 43% of executives said that their investment will focus on urban metro geographic areas, while only 27% said their investment will focus on rural areas, and close to 29% will focus on suburban areas.
When it comes to network upgrades and modernisation, executives said that their most biggest priorities are security upgrades, followed closely by speed/low latency connectivity upgrades.
“The survey is consistent with much of what FiberLight is experiencing in today’s very dynamic market where people are working in numerous ways–either on-site, remotely, or a combination of the two. They want robust, highly-secure–even private–services to support their network strategy, and especially in underserved rural and suburban geographies,” said Chris Rabii, CEO of FiberLight.
41% of respondents said their business uses a hybrid cloud model to support application while just over 36% use a cloud data centre model.
The cloud applications users reported hosting include unified communications and collaboration (Zoom, Webex, Teams, etc.: 22% of respondents), Security SaaS (22% of respondents), CRM Saas (18% of respondents), and other SaaS applications.
