Sir – Microsoft’s recent prediction that the office could soon become a thing of the past in the South East underlines just how fundamentally the Internet has changed the way we do business.

The claims, made in a study published last week said that in future, companies in the South East will spend much less on traditional office space as their workers increasingly call for the opportunity to hot-desk or work from home.

According to Microsoft, just 55 per cent of office space is used at any one time, presenting businesses with a huge opportunity to work more efficiently and sustainably through ways of working that make more use of the Internet.

Remote working and hot-desking programmes are not difficult or expensive to put in place. Often all staff need to work remotely is a laptop and a home broadband connection.

This, combined with secure access to a Virtual Private Network, gives employees all they need to operate effectively.

But before staff can start to benefit from remote working, businesses must ensure that their IT networks are able to take the strain.

The good news is, however, that with extensive fibre optic networks already in the ground delivering high-speed services in the South East, there’s plenty of bandwidth to go around.

Andrew Beckhaus, Head of business markets, Virgin Media Business in the South East