With the security perimeter bounding beyond office spaces due to Covid-19, companies large and small have ramped up their remote work offerings. With Covid-19 as the backdrop, Comcast Business has teamed up with HPE's Aruba to offer an enterprise-grade VPN service that's called Teleworker VPN.
Comcast Business' Teleworker VPN offers a centrally managed remote access VPN solution to give employees the same access to their corporate networks as when they are in their office spaces. When combinded with Comcast Business' Teleworker Broadband offering, it provides remote employees with secure, reliable connections to their business systems, applications and files.
Teleworker VPN runs over a separate, dedicated connection, which means it doesn't interfere with residential broadband services in users' homes.
Aruba brings its Aruba ESP, which is an enterprise-class, cloud-native platform that's centrally managed by Aruba Central’s single cloud console, into the Teleworker VPN service. When combined with Comcast’s Managed VPN Aggregator service at a business location, enterprises can securely connect home-based devices, including laptops, desktops, VoIP phones, printers and more to the corporate network.
Comcast Business said the Teleworker VPN service eased the burden on companies' IT teams by employing centralized cloud management. Using optimization, it also finds and dynamically fixes network issues.
While no one knows for certain whether all of the remote workers will ever return to their office spaces, hybrid work solutions—where an employee works from home a few days week and then goes to the office the other days—could become the norm going forward.
The COVID-19 crisis has changed the network paradigm for service providers, which now means home-based employees need managed access points, more robust routers and corporate provided phones as part of an increased focus on standardized home office infrastructure that can be managed by a business or service provider.
Comcast Business said the Teleworker VPN service, which can be installed via "plug and play," improves the hybrid work environment by providing a consistent experience no matter where the employee is working.
“Though the number of people working partially or fully remote has been on the rise for years now, the pandemic has truly sent this trend into hyperdrive,” said Christian Nascimento, vice president of product management, Comcast Business, in as statement. “Comcast Business Teleworker VPN enables enterprises to reimagine the work from home experience for both employer and employee alike, all while maintaining the security, performance and management they enjoy in-office."
RELATED: Comcast Business delivers enterprise-grade broadband for WFH employees
In order to provide improved connectivity and security for work-from-home (WFH) employees, Comcast Business launched its Comcast Business At Home offering in July.
There are no data cap on the new business tier, which also provides a separate Wi-Fi network and service set identifier (SSID) as well as optional static IP. Businesses of all sizes can add as many employees as they want across multiple locations with the service, and each employee's service is billed to the company's Comcast Business account.
AT&T, Cox Communications and Lumen (CenturyLink) also announced new WFH tiers over the course of the summer.