COVID-19 has thrown the whole world into a new phase of life, and the world of telecom networks is no different. The additional network traffic that has been triggered by the pandemic has caused an increase of over 50% since last year, with a much higher frequency of video conferencing being the leading cause. This has caused many major network providers to realize the importance of upgrading their current networks in order to increase bandwidth to the public. Be it from HFC to Fiber, or Fiber to 5G, network operators are rushing to start heavy upgrade projects across the world.
More upgrades mean more activities in network projects for these companies. To ensure that the projects move forward in a timely manner even with the skyrocketing count of jobs and activities that network operators are facing, they need to make sure that their process are smooth and efficient. Gone are the days where paper maps for land base inputs and network design work would cut it, as the world moves digital.
Especially as the number of jobs and activities goes up, having network data, not only overlayed on a geospatially accurate map, but being actionable data as well, makes a huge difference. At IMMCO, in a recent FTTC rollout project in Australia for a major public broadband provider, we’ve seen first-hand the advantage that this gives companies in terms of reduced turnaround times and speedy, accurate job completion. Getting the data digitized and on an accurate land map is the first step. What really makes the difference is the industry specific business logic that iBISS® (IMMCO’s proprietary software) embeds with the data entered, making the network design, IFDV and as-built processes far quicker than industry standards.
Another growing trend with the rise of fiber networks, 5G and a shift towards higher bandwidths in networks is the advent of the smart city, where a majority of the municipalities processes are monitored digitally, with sensors and rules for data set across traffic lights, water levels, emergency calls, power supply grids and much more. One of IMMCO’s major customers is currently undergoing a vast smart city project across the US, where reduced turnaround times for permitting and network designs have allowed work to finish far before the initially scheduled times.
We’ve realized that while digitized data is important, having your network and land map data on a digital platform isn’t enough on its own. Having actionable data that follows industry standard logic rules applying to network design across HFC, Fiber and 5G makes a world of difference when looking to get activities done at a faster pace than usual and avoid job backlogs piling up into the hundreds and thousands during these times.
As automation, AI and ML start to move to the forefront of these processes, we’re making sure that our team is well-equipped, with a Center of Excellence specific to introducing automation wherever possible into our software and services as well. As many of the tasks related to network design fall into a standard set of groups, supervised machine learning is primed to speed up tasks across is the industry from the get go, leading to unsupervised ML and automation to take charge in the near future. IMMCO looks to keep itself at the bleeding edge of innovation in the cable and telecom industries and provide our clients and partners with the confidence that we’ll continue to do so.
About the Author
Pictured: Sunil Kumar, CTO, IMMCO Inc
Sunil Kumar is the CTO at IMMCO Inc. He has been in the company’s leadership team for over a decade, bringing with him over 18 years of combined experience in software and telecom engineering. With a background in geospatial data modelling, Web GIS development, and solution architecture, Sunil has helped numerous clients move their network data to efficient working environments.
To get in touch with Sunil, email him at sks@immcoinc.com.