Telecommunications outside plant management throughout brasil
Geovane Cayres Magalhiies, Ph. D.
TELEBRAS / CPqD
Rodovia Campinas Mogi-Mirim km 117
CAMPINAS, SP BRASIL 13.088-061
E-mail: geovane@cpqd.br
Abstract
The development of SAGRE, an outside plant management system, is discussed
stressing the lessons learned in the process. In order to satisfy the requirements of
the 28 Telebras Operating Companies and to cope with the high demand of
telecommunications facilities typical of countries under development, SAGRE had
to come out with flexible and innovative solutions that can also be applied to many
operating companies around the world.
Introduction
Telebras (TELECOMUNICACOES BRASILEIRAS S/A) provides, through its 28 regional
and one long distance national operating companies, telecommunications services using 15
million accesses. The network records used to be mapped in more than 300.000 large size maps.
SAGRE Project, TELEBRAS solution for managing the network outside plant, was introduced at
the 1994 AM/FM Conference (Magalhiies, 1994a). SAGRE is a Portuguese acronym for
Automated System for Management of Outside Plant. At that time we stressed the objectives for
a comprehensive and open system being implemented to meet the requirements of TELEBRAS’s
state operating companies. Now, after the conclusion of pilot deployments and with the
system operational in almost all of our operating companies, we would like to share with the
AM/FM community the lessons we learned in the development process.
SAGRE covers the entire life cycle of outside plant management: planning; design; construction;
operation and maintenance. SAGRE enables the engineers to plan new expansions and to design
the work to be done. It calculates the material and labor needed in each construction step while
simultaneously enforces the company engineering standards. It also makes it possible to increase
network utilization by finding the best facilities to service each subscriber need. Another
significant development resulting from SAGRE is a new paradigm for data conversion, devised
in order to speed up and lessen the cost and complexity of this critical process.
In the following sections we summarize the lessons we learned in the process of building
SAGRE.
User Requirements
SAGRE development team consisted of system analysts and outside plant engineers. This team
was based at the TELEB~S CPqD Research and Development Center backed by several work
groups composed of the operating companies’ representatives. It is important to know that the 28
operating companies became part of TELEB~S group after many years of operations had its
own practices and methods. Their maps and drawing conventions looked alike but each one had
its own special mode of operation. Writing the requirements for such a group was very diflicult.
Although these requirements made the development diflicult they contributed to the creation of a
very flexible system.
Another source of special requirements was the Brasil telecommunications network. Typical of
countries under development and due to the lack of investment funds, tariff regulations, and
social pressures, the demand for telephone lines is unmet, causing the need for big network
expansions. This situation necessitated the fulfillment of two general requirements not common
in current outside plant management systems:
(a) on-line facilities assignments in-line with the enterprise operations support systems;
(b) planning of a big network expansion followed by detailed design for cost effective and timely
Construction
The first requirement calls for on-line operations in a GIS environment. Traditionally, even in an
AM/FM environment, GIS have been used for record keeping and work order processing. In
telecommunications this means keeping the records up to the terminal box and leaving the
subscriber services and facilities mapping to the legacy mainframe operations support systems.
In order to achieve optimum functionality, storing the subscriber’s addresses, all the connectivity
mapping, and electronic equipment functionality in the GIS was necessary.
The second requirement adds another level of network maintenance. The work order model is
fitted for small modifications in a stable network. In developed countries, the network grows
with the city. There is a facility for each house and increase in demand is easily solved by small
work orders. However, in developing countries, in addition to the small day-to-day changes,
there are big expansion projects. We would like to take these projects back into the company
database automatically.
System Design and Modeling
In order to satisfi the needs of 28 operating companies we had to come up with a very flexible
system. We modeled the network in the very fine level of detail. A lot of resources and time
were spent in the design. We discovered later that this was a wise decision. The
telecommunications network is growing fast in complexity due to the massive introduction of
fiber and electronics.
Our data model can accommodate very complex situations found in existing telecommunications
networks. It covers the land base, including the home addresses, the ducts and manhole network,
the aerial, buried, and mixed network, the network that runs inside the ducts and man-holes, the
air pressure network, electrical protection, and several other details.
Wire and fiber connectivity is controlled by the end-user. Each cable segment, equipment,
splices, and most other objects of the network can be made connected or not connected
resembling real life operation. Connected paths make the telecommunications way of providing
services. A complete path can run on several cable segments, enter and exit equipment according
to its functionality, from the central office to the subscribers.
The application is driven by a data base that describes the data model and the user interface in
terms of classes and objects. Evolution and introduction of new objects in new equipment can be
accomplished without difficulties.
Functionality is provided in three levels. In the first level the operations (facility assignments)
oversee the whole area of interest. The second level contains the existing plant database (or
databases). The third level contains the projects being carried out on a check-out/check-in basis.
Most of the maintenance and design operations use versions to store the proposed work.
Microcomputers are the preferred platform in this part of the enterprise for operations level
functionality. The other functions are available in RISC workstations for performance reasons.
SAGRE is designed to scale online operations and design from very small operating companies
to very large ones like the WioPaulo metropolitan area.
GIS
SAGRE was designed and developed on top of two software platforms commercially available, a
relational data base management system and a geographical information system (GIS). The GIS
was selected through a formal bid. The bid analyzed many aspects we found important at that
time and each software was submitted to a benchmark. There were mandatory and punctuated
aspects. One of the mandatory aspects, the relationship of the GIS with commercial data base
management systems, proved to be the most important.
Now, we can comment about the features we needed more. A sophisticated symbology language
capable of deriving symbols and details is a must. AM/FM systems can be made more effective
through the wise use of symbology. A client server architecture, version support and check-in/
check-out mechanisms are aspects we needed to be able to fulfill the requirements. Another
aspect we can consider now as fundamental is the support for schematics.
One aspect we considered very important in the beginning, the support to standard data
interchange formats, has not been necessary as we predicted. We suppose this was due to the
lack of GIS industry standards, or the absence of data to be interchanged. Countries under
development still do not have a tradition in AM/FM systems. We have done extensive data
exchange in CAD formats, but a lot of work is usually required to structure these data according
to SAGRE needs. We badly need a standard in this area.
