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When we closed on our first home, a charmer home built in 1912, I remember thinking how quaint it was that I had to turn off all of the kitchen lights in order to run the blow dryer. If I forgot, one of the ancient circuits blew. Never a good thing.
When we sold that money pit (I mean charming house), I remember thinking I would never again experience the frustration of turning off one thing to run another.
Fast forward to today.
Working from home is a tremendous gift, and I’m very grateful. Each morning, I create my own little editorial Nirvana with quiet Pandora spa music in the background while I edit, take IP conference calls, and work in the Cloud to cobble together the next issue of OSP® magazine.
Or not.
Instead, on most days, my 50 Mbps service requires me to turn off Pandora if I’m on an IP conference call — or my voice becomes a jackhammer beating headaches into our team members. Or, if I attempt to download a hi-res image file while I’m rapidly scanning the Internet for cool OSP-related research, the bandwidth police slap my hand and say, "No double duty for you!"
Then, there’s the morning my husband needs to work from home. In a more than passive aggressive way, we end up battling for bandwidth. If he has a call, I may as well nap since my interactive upstream/downstream work slows to a crawl. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve given up and turned on my additional hot spot to remedy when we each fire up our 3-4 devices. (What do they call that? Spoiled editor problems?)
Therefore, I was not in the least bit surprised when I found a "new" research report sharing how consumers are no longer expecting OTT service to work — they want zero resolution volatility, superior picture, and no interruptions. Duh. (Forget OTT; how ‘bout simple conference calls?)
I’m not asking for Gigabit speeds or fiber-to-my-desktop. I just want to stop the flashbacks to my first aged home where my blow dryer was its greatest enemy.
Maybe that’s why the education at OSP EXPO is so relevant. Because as network professionals, you can truly impact the workday of home workers like me. With more than 35 seminars free for the taking, you could find a cost-effective solution that can be deployed to my out-of-CO-range neighborhood where copper is king and exiles me into the bandwidth desert.
I’ll even give you a free VIP code so you don’t have to pay the registration fee. (VIP CODE: Direct1B)Please, I beg of you — attend, and then tell me help is on the way. Really.
#canthavemycakeandeatittoo
Register Now at http://www.ospmag.com/expo
Registration is FREE when using priority code Direct1B and includes access to the keynotes, free seminars, product demos, exhibit floor and networking happy hour.

Sharon Vollman | Content Ambassador for ISE EXPO
Sharon Vollman is the Content Ambassador for ISE EXPO. She is passionate about collaborating with thought leaders, SMEs and hard-working doers who design, plan and deploy ultra-reliable broadband networks. Vollman is committed to creating a variety of educational offerings for ISE EXPO attendees that inspire them to connect every U.S. citizen with the broadband networks we all want for our children and grandchildren.
Vollman has created educational partnerships with Broadband Service Providers including AT&T, Verizon, Lumen, Frontier Communications and others. She has covered the telecom industry since 1996.