As telecom network operators strive to deliver new fiber-based broadband networks in a highly competitive market, you face ever-increasing challenges to do so faster, better and cheaper than ever before. In order to meet these challenges, you need to eliminate the operational friction that is inherent in the traditional fiber optic planning and design process. For many organizations, the planning and design stages of network rollouts include time-consuming, repetitive, manual steps that introduce errors and delay deployment. Speed and accuracy are critical for business success.
The traditional planning process for a new fiber optic network involves spreadsheets and weeks of manual work. Network planners often cannot access reliable data, which makes it impossible to clearly identify the most profitable areas for new rollouts. What you need instead is an automated fiber planning solution to quickly compare area costs, scenarios, and architectures to create informed estimates and maximize ROI on network designs.
Comsof automated fiber planning removes the slow and error-prone manual steps. It enables planners to instantly access reliable, GIS-based figures and determine the most profitable areas in minutes or hours instead of days or weeks. Perhaps the biggest difference is the ability to compare different scenarios – with precise bills of materials and – to eliminate friction and quickly deliver accurate cost estimates. The automation can optimize your FTTx business case.
Manual processes delay fiber design finalization
The design stage of a fiber rollout project suffers from similar delays, from both manual data inputs and manual engineering. While the individual designers are commonly very skilled at designing a new network, the organization can suffer when one designer envisions a new network in a slightly different way than another, which leads to inconsistency across the organization and the need to repeat design processes. Conflict and confusion frustrate your team and cost you time and money.
The Comsof software enables telecom operators to configure design rules for an optimal fiber network, ensuring control and uniformity for every network design. The solution processes new designs rapidly, instantly accessing accurate network data and creating multiple thorough designs in days instead of months. Want to test multiple design scenarios? Simply change the design parameters and the Comsof software will automatically generate alternatives that would be completely impractical with manual processes. Accelerating and streamlining the design process becomes exponentially more important as telecom operators must scale to meet higher and higher volumes of fiber connections.
Fiber optic network design variations are costly and disruptive
A lack of uniformity in the design process introduced by the preferences of individual designers is highly inefficient and severely damages network ROI. When implementing automation, you reduce human error and instantly update design data across the enterprise to improve network data quality.
One of the biggest benefits of IQGeo’s integrated planning and design process is the ability to immediately take designs into the field to quickly conduct field surveys and edit designs via tablet. This native mobile capability also enables staff and contractors to make digital updates in real-time, and every employee can see accurate and timely network data. Field crews can help to find the optimal combination of new and existing infrastructure, lowering costs by reusing poles, ducts, fiber, and manholes. Design corrections that occur when an organization has already begun a network build are extremely costly, so it’s crucial to deliver final, consistent designs as early as possible.
Another obstacle to fast fiber network rollout is the inaccurate data between teams. Traditional drawings can take a long time to deliver, so construction teams usually wait to discover what they're building. Manual updates take significant time to process after a handoff, and this becomes much worse when field teams have to markup maps by hand and then have an engineer enter the updates.
Comsof integrates with IQGeo to automatically create drawings, generate splice schemes and duct connectivity reports, and then input the data into Network Manager Telecom. The digital automation instantly shares data and progress reports across the organization, improving the process for materials and labor and delivering accurate reports that enable a faster transition to build.
The integration is the final piece of accelerating fiber network designs and builds, which is where IQGeo and Comsof truly stand out among the crowd. The workspace setup is much easier, as a user can simply select an area in IQGeo and start a design with all the data automatically populated. Designs are created in a single platform instead of spread across multiple computers, applications, and users. For a large design workflow, you can divide the distribution areas over multiple planners simultaneously, which is very difficult in other platforms. Finally, the ability to automatically import a design enables a fast, seamless transition to building the new fiber network.
The FTTx landscape is more competitive than ever. Comsof and IQGeo’s integrated capabilities eliminate the complexity and friction of manual processes and accelerate fiber planning, design and build, helping your organization stay ahead of the game.
To learn more about the benefits of an integrated approach, talk to our industry experts and see how you could accelerate your fiber planning and design processes.