"As states innovate at scale, modernizing legacy applications and adopting hybrid architectures to deliver more digital services, without a commensurate investment in an agile network infrastructure these projects will be delayed or fail," Dave Lovelace, National Director – SLED Technology Strategy at Lumen, warned in a recent interview.
Why a network-first argument is driving state IT decisions
Over the last 18 months, state governments have taken on greater responsibility for delivering digital citizen services while modernizing IT systems. The central claim from the conversation with Dave Lovelace is straightforward: modern applications, AI and cloud investments need a matching upgrade at the network layer to produce the expected returns. Lovelace said investment in "an agile network, one that is flexible, resilient, secure, and data capable, should be a priority for state governments." Without that, he argued, modernization projects can be delayed or fail.
Data flows, AI, and the emergence of machine-to-machine traffic
Lovelace stressed that data—not applications alone—is the immediate fuel for improved government services. He noted that "the data that is needed to deliver government services more effectively and optimize myriad other vital functions is already in the cloud and as AI becomes part of our daily workflows, more and more network traffic will be machine to machine." He echoed Lumen CEO Kate Johnson's framing: "data needs access to compute and compute needs access to network." The implication in both comments is that making data actionable requires networks that can move and connect compute at scale.
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End the scrambleOperational failures state leaders must fear: spikes and ransomware
The source cites two concrete classes of failures that can break citizen trust. First, Lovelace said traditional telecom networks "weren't built to support AI at volume and speed" and that a sudden surge—such as during benefits enrollment or following a natural disaster as residents file for aid—can cause a service outage or "functional crash." Second, he observed that ransomware has "crippled state governments and resulted in billions of dollars in downtime costs." Both, he said, are unacceptable because they damage the trust relationship between government and citizen.
Lumen's next-generation network: design choices tied to public-sector needs
Lovelace described modernized network infrastructure not as fixed hardware but "a service that can expand and contract on demand to manage ever-changing data volumes," provide multicloud connectivity, offer low latency because it "operates on state-of-the-art fiber," and be secured with "network layered defense and consistent policy enforcement." He said when Lumen designed its next-generation network it sought not only reliability for the data volumes public-sector customers will face but also ways to "minimize costs by simplifying provisioning, automating cloud connectivity to all the major hyperscalers, and reducing overall operational complexity."
What this means for technologists, procurement leaders, and the public
- Technologists and security teams: Expect pressure to validate that networking upgrades deliver low-latency paths to cloud compute, multicloud connectivity, and consistent policy enforcement—especially to avoid outages during predictable spikes and to reduce ransomware impact.
- Policymakers and procurement leaders: The conversation reframes network modernization as an investment rather than a pure cost. Lovelace argued reimagining "the network not as hardware but as a service that can scale, connect, and manage whatever comes next" should be prioritized to avoid the costs of failure.
- End users and the general public: Service reliability during high-demand events—benefits enrollment, disaster recovery, and other peak moments—depends on infrastructure that can expand and contract on demand. Failures in those moments, the source warns, erode trust and carry measurable downtime costs.
Lovelace closed the argument with a time-based imperative: "Way back when, isn’t 5 years ago anymore when it comes to technology and citizen service delivery," he said. "At most it’s 18 months and getting shorter by the minute, which compounds the strain on both the infrastructure and citizen trust." For state leaders deciding where to allocate scarce funds, the source frames a clear trade: spend on network agility now, or pay in outages, ransomware downtime and lost trust later. As Lovelace put it, network modernization "should always be seen as an investment and not a cost."
