A Tech Republic feature states that the mobile device penetration is now causing a mobile revolution. Elance recently reported in a blog post that according to a survey done by Pew Research Center now shows than there are “more American Adults who own Smartphones, now than ever”.
The research spews out some numbers that are indeed impressive. As of February 2012, over 35% of Americans already own smartphones. The study also notes that Google declared that it is on the brink of activating 850,000 Android devices a day. The Apple home page already reports the number of iPhone Applications is reaching a 1 million mark.
These are exciting times for anything mobile. The question: Is your network ready to handle this extensive growth in mobile use? Here are a few tips:
Understand the challenges
When your network has to get ready for hosting mobile devices of all sorts. To begin with, you’ll need to plan how to extend your network infrastructure to accommodate the ever-increasing use of mobile devices. The usual concerns regarding extending networks for mobile devices are security, data, etc. With networking best practices, use of cloud computing, and the use of excellent resources, tools available, etc., it’s a pretty much smooth process.
Set-up Required Policies for users
Just as there would have been a security policy, network usage policy, and other compliance related policies for better and safer use of your business network; your decision to incorporate mobile devices would need a policy too. Since mobile devices – whether company supplied or BYOD (bring your own device) – share data, access proprietary networks, gain access to sensitive business information, this is a policy that can’t be ignored. It should integrate with your overall network usage policies, needles to say.
Get help when you should
Even if you have a resident IT department, it’s usually best to consult experts. The first step is to find solutions or expert IT consultants to help grow these new wings for your business. The process usually involves the experts taking time to figure out the present capacity of your network, whether it needs to be scaled up, security perimeters and protocols, etc. Then the implementation begins.
We have been setting up networks, extending networks to absorb changes in technology such as extending networks for mobile devices, and a lot more for years now. If you need help here, don’t hesitate to talk to us.