Enhancing Geodata Display for the Enterprise
Maurice Wildgen
Byers Engineering Company SpatialAge Solutions Divisions
6285 Barfield Road Atlanta, GA 30328
Abstract
Benefits of spatial views of network assets are not restricted to engineering users. As enterprise
data repositories become spatially enabled, the need arises for more robust geodata display
capability allowing sales and marketing, customer service, installation and repair, provisioning,
one-call, as well as engineering personnel to more effectively participate in service fulfillment
and assurance processes.
In the not too distant future, broadband content will lead all revenue sources enabled by
communications networks. Operational Support System (OSS) product vendors and service
providers understand next-generation OSSs must enable the creation of new business products,
while network infrastructure plays a supporting role. Good marketing to spur demand, is only
successful if it can deliver what it promises. Knowledge of network infrastructure and
corresponding customer connectivity is the basis for effective service fulfillment and assurance
in a competitive environment.
With enhanced geodata display capability, users can select, display, report, and subsequently
analyze aspects of their facilities infrastructure by combining it with data from external sources.
Sharing facility data can allow views superimposed on image data, demographics, customer
location, street network, and boundary data thereby supporting efficient management of
customer connectivity contributing to low cost, high quality of service.
Overview
This paper presents a description of a geodata viewing and reporting product (GeoData Display)
that is intended to provide utility industry users read-only access to spatial and tabular facilities
data in a spatially enabled database. In general, the purpose of a such a geo-display product is to
provide a variety of methods, techniques, and approaches for the user to explore and analyze
their geo-referenced data.
Users can select, display, report, and subsequently analyze aspects of their facilities
infrastructure by combining it with external data sources. For example, views of facilities
superimposed on image data, demographics, customer location, street network, and boundary
data can support trouble management, dispatching, maintenance & repair, Continuing Property
Reporting (CPR), and CBUD (Call Before You Dig) activities.
The full featured GeoData Display tool would support external data combined with spatially
enabled facility data by accessing other data sources over the enterprise information bus. In this
manner operational data, customer records, trouble reports, utilization data, and demographic
data can be merged allowing unprecedented views of the current (or historical) state of the
business (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Geodata Display Product
The term "spatial analysis" encompasses a wide range of techniques for analyzing, visualizing,
simplifying, and theorizing about spatially-enabled data. Methods of spatial analysis can be as
simple as taking measurements from a map or as sophisticated as the most abstract forms of
mathematical statistics.
