Driving telecommunications business changes with GIS
Brian Wade
Director of 0SS Planning, SNET, 555 Long Wharf Drive, New Haven, CT 06511
Abstract
The telecommunications industry is embroiled in a technology revolution which will impact all of its traditional
operational disciplines. To meet the challenge, engineering must emerge from the back room of currentoperations
and reconstituteitself as the foundationof the telecommunicationsbusiness.The choiceof engineeringtools is one
of the most importantdecisionsfor OperationalSupportSystems(0SS) plannersand could determinethe successor
failureof the planning,construction,managementand administrationof futuretelecommunicationnetworks.
Introduction
SNET, a telecommunications provider located in Connecticut, USA, is in the process of a major overhaul of its
Operations Support Systems infrastructure to accommodate several significant changes in its operations and
business climate:
- The rapid introduction of broadband and other future technologies as they emerge.
- Network diversification and distributed control.
- Rapid, in-house, product and service development.
- Full and open competition.
- The provision of wholesale access to the network (a.k.a. unbundling).
At the foundationof this architectureis a set of engineeringtools implementedon top of SmallworldSystems,Inc
GIS technology. Thesesystemsnot only supportengineeringprocess but also provide the necessary fuel, in the
form of derived data, to a suite of tightly integrated downstream applications. These downstream systems support
construction, inventory management, element management, network surveillance, workforce administration, and
assignment.
The Challenge
Narrow bandnetworksare characterizedby the existenceof highly complex,highly integratedswitchingnodes
interconnectedto the customerbase via vast amountof coppercables,constructedas feederand distribution
networks. Design criteria are limited to the electrical and transmission properties of copper cable. These criteria are
well understood, and are relatively insensitive to distance. In contrast, broadband technologies are moving the
boundary of the switching center to the customer’s doorstep. Remote terminals housing supervisory electronics will
be located on poles and pedestals only feet away ffom the target customer’s premises. In many instances serving
equipment will be located on the side of the customer’s building or within the building itself. In effect, the network
has become a geographically distributed infrastructure. Moreover, it is subject to critical design constraints which
are a function of media bandwidth, offered broadband and narrowband traffic, the complex transmission
characteristics of optical and coaxial media, the separation of power and signal distribution, the critical balance
between capital and expense, and equipment designs whose operational sensitivity is measured in feet rather than
thousands of feet. The geographical relationship between customers and the switching centers which serve them has
also changed from a many-to-one relationship via a geographically predictable distribution network to a many-to-many
relationship in which the serving terminal’s geographical location is highly unpredictable as illustrated in
Figure 1.
Figure 1: Broadband distribution model
The challenge oftheengineering processhasmultiple dimensions:
- The establishment and maintenance of a geographically accurate landbase.
- The definition of nodal serving areas based upon gee-political boundaries (e.g. towns and counties),
gee-service boundaries (e.g. wire centers), customer demographics and related traffic considerations.
- Actual network designs. The plural form is intentionally used to signify the inevitable evolution of
broadbaod networks into rational overlays of multiple and hopefully complementary technologies.
Network inventory management.
- The establishment and maintenance of Service Address to Serving Technology relationships.
- Engineering process logistics such as concurrency management.
- Transitional management through design, construction, inventory creation, arid equipment activation.
- The derivation of operational data for all related downstream processes.
