Moving into the next generation GIS

Net Viewer
Net Viewer provides a tool kit to develop local or customized tools for use in the operation teams. Net Viewer permits the use of Internet Explorer to extract and interact with live GIS data. It uses open data format to deliver “smart features” and can display the features as active or inactive.

Network Design & Management
GRM provides a standard model as the foundation for the Design and Work/Job Management component. A standard GRM such as Intergraph’s G/COMMS model should provide a pre-built and pre-integrated telephone GIS application. Including the data model, design and placement functions, interface to assignment software, map production functions, and network management and work order processing foundation. A telephone company can benefit immediately from our solution. The enabling GIS technology must support long-term transaction management, conflict resolution, seamless landbase and facilities model, spatial analysis functions, and a rulebase engine. It must also integrate with corporate computer applications, such as work management, trouble and outage management, materials management, customer information systems, real-time network management, and network analysis.

The GRM application must support the ability to perform “what-if” planning, design and analysis of the telephone network. In the end the most cost effective solution can then be chosen and a detailed design completed.

Operations & Maintenance
The mobile viewer increases the efficiency of service assurance technicians. With the analysis tools provided with a mobile viewer, the technician can analyze and trace single pair troubles in any direction on the network. Network data, combined with assignment data, allows the technician to prioritize service restoration on major cable cuts and restore those groups, which serve high visibility customers such as Hospitals, banks and financial institutions.

Service Assurance teams also require the capability to view and edit facilities data in the field. This capability is used to perform inspections, record changes, and feed information back to the engineering office. This capability is supported by a mobile viewer, which provides field access to the facilities model.

The mobile viewer should provide full access to GIS data on a corporate scale, have a small footprint, and have the ability to display all major CAD formats, including MicroStation and AutoCAD. The viewer must also provide the ability to perform redline functions that can be re-introduced into the corporate database.

Marketing and Sales
The “new construction” request is the demand to expand or modify the service delivery system. These requests can be as simple as adding a new service or may require extremely complex construction for new development or rerouting. Before deregulation, customers or developers within the service territory of the prevailing telephone company usually initiated these requests. Under the new business rules, marketing programs are now in place to pursue new development or competitor’s customers aggressively. These marketing programs are highly dependent on numerous geospatial models such as facilities, demographics, environmental, and many more. Today’s competitive environment is a driving force for implementing geospatial applications. Decision support and service analysis is supported today via spatial analysis tools. Market analysis, spatial query, spatial analysis, and the generation of maps and reports are the main functionality required by these users.

With an enterprise database and functionality available in a GRM application pre sales inquiries can be performed to determine whether equipment and facilities are available for the services cusotmers desire. On a strategic front the telco can focus on increased market penetration by using demographic data provided by external sources coupled with the GRM application features and data. Using this information the telco can target market segments to increase profitability.

GRM Benefits
The business of a telcommunications company is conceptually quite simple:

Build an infrastructure so that communications services can be delivered to customers.
Maintain the network, which means resolve any routine problems or repair major damage so that customers can continuously use the their communications devices at their homes or businesses. The essential work effort involves:
Determining what work needs to be performed and in what priority while maximizing capital investment.
Providing skilled people, the required materials, and the necessary equipment to build the next part of the network or to resolve a problem.

The telco requires an “information system” to manage the complex network. Historically, the information system was a paper-based system that required a very large number of people just to maintain the data in the information management system. With large distances and time delays, it was not possible for a paper information system to provide the instant answers necessary to determine what needed to be done next and how to do it in the most timely manner.

Eventually, computers were employed to take on more and more of the informationmanagement functions, and many of the redundant steps were eliminated from the daily operations. Now these systems are becoming integrated into packages, as evidenced by the popularity of ERP Solutions.

Many of the more technical engineering systems are still being implemented as standalone systems. Their true value to the enterprise will be felt only when all applications are fully integrated with other automation systems, including Web-based and mobile computing applications. The benefits of implementing a fully integrated GRM environment, with interfaces to the ERP and CIS systems, will provide a significant step toward the ultimate Information Management System where all data is instantly available and cross-related to all other data in the organization.

Interfaces between GRM and legacy applications
An integrated database resides at the heart of the GRM environment. This database contains tabular as well as graphical data. Extensive use of “triggers” and “stored procedures” are used to update tables automatically and move data or start other applications as a result of various processes that occur during normal operations.

“Island tables” are used to pass data between the major applications. This process has proven effective in maintaining a consistent interface between applications from multiple vendors. This isolates all data between applications at a common interface point allowing each vendor to make required changes to the applications as they evolve over time. This also minimizes the work required by other vendors to accommodate these changes.

Data conversion integrated with the GRM implementation
Many customers initially underestimate the cost and effort required to convert their data for a GIS project. The cost to convert the data into the GIS is estimated to be approx 30% of the project. Reducing these costs and ensuring that the correct data is populated into the GIS is a critical consideration for a successful GRM program.

One of the factors contributing to the conversion cost is that most telcos have existing source data in a variety of digital formats. The mapping of disparate and redundant data sources to the GIS database tables is perhaps the most challenging effort for any GRM program. This can be done most effectively if the GIS provider and the data conversion vendor work closely with the telco’s personnel who are familiar with the data sources. This team approach reduces errors early in the program, provides the levels of expertise at critical times, and reduces the risk of populating incomplete or inaccurate data into the GIS database.

Implementation services and ongoing support
Recognizing the need for efficiency in implementation services, a project team must be committed to providing highly trained support and service specialists. The team’s first step toward meeting the telco’s GRM requirement is to understand their overall business objectives, operational procedures, work force responsibilities, and equipment needs.