Podcast: MetTel’s Ed Fox on extending enterprise IT to home networks

Ed Fox, CTO of MetTel, joins the Light Reading podcast to discuss challenges in extending SD-WAN services to home networks, whether SASE makes sense to enterprise customers and how MetTel is helping its customers navigate the onslaught of video conferencing and messaging applications.

“Extending SD-WAN to the home – we’ve done it sparingly and not as much as you would have thought,” says Fox. As employees return to the office, Fox predicts that enterprises will take a hard look at the VPN, SD-WAN and SASE services available as they develop strategies around their move to the cloud and also balance IT support for remote and on-premises employees.

“There was a lot of trepidation [from enterprise customers] about extending the network to home,” says Fox. “Also, the IT departments didn’t want to do it because now I have to deal with ‘Joe’s’ cable modem and all of a sudden I’m in his home network? Those are some of the things we saw that really surprised us.”

In addition, Fox discusses how MetTel is assisting its customers in managing a variety of collaboration applications such as WebEx and Microsoft Teams, and how these apps are impacting enterprise use of traditional phone services.

You can find all of Light Reading’s editorial and custom audio programs on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud or Spotify.

— Kelsey Kusterer Ziser, Senior Editor, Light Reading