Melbourne, Australia — Oct. 15, 2020 — Cradlepoint, the global leader in cloud-delivered LTE and 5G wireless network edge solutions, today released findings from its Cradlepoint Wireless Networks Study Australia 2020 by Telsyte. The study found that 51% of Australian organisations plan to start using or increase 4G LTE technology use, while 73% plan to start using or increase 5G technology use in the next 12 months, to support changed business strategies.
The growth in wireless WAN adoption is in-part a reaction to the catastrophic events of 2020, including the national bushfires and global pandemic.
The survey found that—despite being dealt two huge blows in the last year with bushfires and the COVID-19 pandemic—over half (52%) of Australian organisations have almost recovered from the disruptions caused by these two events in areas of IT infrastructure planning and business process.
“Australian organisations are preparing for the long-term changes forced upon them by the events of 2020 by accelerating their digital transformation timelines,” said Gavin Wilson, Managing Director APAC, Cradlepoint. “They also understand that robust, adaptable and secure connectivity is increasingly essential for business survival and growth.”
The digital transformation timeline of nearly two-thirds of organisations has been brought forward due to the current climate. Eighty-nine percent of organisations have started looking to invest in technologies that will better prepare them for future unplanned events, with 61% of respondents already making such investments.
“From work-from-home and retail distribution centre pop-ups and relocations, to emergency health clinics and temporary disaster relief processing centres, business operations and connectivity needs have been turned on their heads over this past year,” said Wilson. “Our research into Australian organisations indicates that as a result of the turmoil of 2020, innovation and new product development is a priority for over a third of organisations. Wireless networking solutions can help enable innovation that relies on high-performance connectivity.”
Telsyte Managing Director, Foad Fadaghi commented that the events of 2020 have seen the move to wireless WAN join the list of technologies becoming critical to business.
"While adoption of wireless software defined networks had been occurring steadily, many now see it as critical as a result of the disruption caused by the pandemic,” said Fadaghi.
“Australian organisations are increasingly fast tracking their wireless WAN infrastructure investments and 5G is set to be an important part of the mix.”
While flexibility and remote management are high on the agenda, improving network cybersecurity is the number one IT priority for organisations over the next 12 months (61% of respondents rank it as a top priority). When it comes to business networking technologies like SD-WAN, 84% see security as a critical feature.
“When it comes to security and remote working, it’s nearly impossible to achieve business security requirements when using an employee’s home network,” said Wilson. “LTE and 5G can provide a dedicated, IT-controlled WAN for remote work and provides a solid foundation for enterprise-class security – you can’t secure what you can’t control.”
It is becoming more evident that the way organisations do business will likely change for the long-term as a result of the impact of COVID-19.
Alongside this realisation, Australian IT leaders are ready for the promise of 5G, believing they will already benefit from some of its capabilities in the next 12 months.
While increased speed and improvements over 4G are much-discussed advantages of 5G, Australian businesses also anticipate 5G to bring huge potential for AI and augmented reality (66%), in addition to lower latency (62%).
The increase in use of LTE and 5G is set to extend beyond branch or multi-site organisations. Sixty percent of companies expect the number of connected vehicles in their fleet to increase in the next two years and half (54%) of businesses expect the number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices connected to their infrastructure to increase over the same period.
Wilson concluded, “Advancing mobile infrastructure, with the right organisational technology to make the most of it, will increasingly connect people, places and things across a rapidly changing business landscape.”
Telsyte used an online survey of 180 IT business decision makers in Australian organisations using WAN on external sites with greater than 100 employees. The interviews were conducted between August 14 and August 31, 2020 inclusive. Specific industries (Retail Trade, Transport, Postal and Warehousing, Public Administration and Safety, and Health Care and Social Assistance) are more heavily targeted in the sample collection.
Cradlepoint is a global leader in cloud-delivered LTE and 5G wireless network edge solutions for branch, mobile, and IoT networks. Cradlepoint NetCloud, the personification of the company’s Elastic Edge vision, is a subscription-based service with purpose-built endpoints that delivers a pervasive, secure, and software-defined Wireless WAN edge to connect people, places, and things over LTE and 5G cellular networks. More than 22,000 businesses and government agencies around the world rely on Cradlepoint to keep critical sites, points of commerce, field forces, vehicles, and IoT devices always connected and protected, including 75% of the world’s top retailers, 50% of the Fortune 100, and first responder agencies in 25 of the largest US cities. Major service providers use Cradlepoint solutions as the foundation for innovative managed services. Founded in 2006, Cradlepoint is a privately held company headquartered in Boise, Idaho, with a development center in Silicon Valley and international offices in the UK and Australia.
Telsyte is Australia’s leading emerging technology analyst firm. Telsyte analysts deliver market research, insights and advisory into enterprise and consumer technologies. Telsyte is an independent business unit of DXC.technology. Visit telsyte.com.au for more information.
Ged Mansour and Natasha David
Espresso Communications for Cradlepoint
cradlepoint@espressocomms.com.au
