The imminent flu season may make the UK network struggle to keep up with bandwidth demand and trouble those reliant on their home broadband.

As per the analysts Gartner and the Centre for Disease Control, 40 percent of the working population would be on leave for an extended period of time. It means that there would be a surge in broadband demand, as more workers will be working from home, which may put local networks in a spot.

When consumer traffic is at its lowest, work-at-home internet usage for commercial purposes is accounted for in the daytime. However, during a pandemic, a prediction is made regarding the consumer internet usage that happens at the same time as work-from-home usage, as many children will stay at home.

Despite employers distributing special software to help with bandwidth and latency issues, Gartner has stressed on using options like 3G, WiMAX or satellite connections to ease the broadband speed problems caused by a pandemic (click for dongle information).

Research vice president at Gartner Roberta Witty has said that organisations need to decide in advance which business operations require maximum internet usage and possibly breaking up hours of operations to increase their chance of getting the needed bandwidth.

In addition, companies should set up various strategies for WAH including pandemic and WAH impact planning in all negotiations with network service providers.