Fiber network planning & design: Getting your data right

Welcome to Bite-Sized Fiber, the podcast where we break down the biggest challenges and best practices shaping the future of fiber and telecom networks, one bite at a time. I'm your host, Ellie Pulse. Today we're kicking off our planning and design series by talking about the foundation of every successful fiber rollout, data quality. Joining me are Stephen Baker, who's designed nearly a million miles of network in his career, and he's been working on a new network. And Jeroen van Averbijke, Product Manager for Comsof Fiber IQGeo. We'll unpack why garbage in, garbage out is more than just a saying, how bad data causes costly redesigns, and what operators can do to ensure their planning data is accurate before they ever put a shovel in the ground. If you're planning a network build, or want to avoid costly headaches later, this episode is for you. Let's dive in. Thank you guys so much for joining. Can you tell our viewers a little bit about what you do and your background? Yes, I am the director of customer success for North America's enterprise telecom customers. I have been in the telecom industry for 33 years. This year, a variety of roles from a drafter, a designer, manager, operations. I have worked in all areas of GIS software implementation, service assurance tools, both as a tool strategist, as well as leading application development. And I just recently left Cox Communication to join IQGeo at the beginning of 2025. Yes, hello, Enlie. My name is Jeroen. I've been at IQGeo, used to be Comsof for about 15 years, and in total about 20 years in the telecom business. I started out as a software developer, mainly on the GIS-based applications in the telecom markets, and then gradually started leading a team. And most recently, I'm the hyperlink manager for Comsof Fiber at IQGeo. Awesome. Super excited to have you guys both on. We have a ton of experience to learn from here. So, Stephen, you've designed close to a million miles in your career, so you've seen it all. Can you share a time when outdated planning methods caused major headaches, whether it was delays, cost overruns, or just unnecessary frustration? Yeah, so I'm reminded of a quote that probably has circulated through project management for many, many years. It came from James Baker when he was, I think, Secretary of State under Reagan, and it was called the Five Ps. Proper planning prevents poor performance. I get reminded of that throughout my career, both in my stumbles as well as dealing with others. I think some of the biggest challenges that I have seen over the years in planning is incomplete data, which bites us day in and day out. During the 90s and up through probably the mid-2000s in the cable industry, you would go through upgrade periods, right? So you could expand more channels, more bandwidth, et cetera. And the practice was at the time, since it was just dumb pad files, was you walked it out every time. So you capture every new address, you capture every new potential customer along the way. Well, we got to the mid-2000s and started implementing GIS systems, and that practice kind of went away. So you go to do an upgrade years later, and you don't do that walkout thinking your data is correct. So you do a design. It gets out to construction, and all of a sudden, we've got homes out here that are not accounted for. So you have to go back through, redesign it, which is an additional cost that you had to do. Maybe add new permits, which is going to delay the process. You just ended up with a bunch of cost overruns because you handed something off to a construction contractor that they now can't build. So they're sitting on their hands waiting on the next one. Yeah, I fully agree with that, Steve. The data quality for the planning is, well, of the utmost importance. It's likely better to spend longer in preparing the data, cleaning up the data that you have in your GIS systems, rather than starting quickly, being the first in the market, the first with a spade in the ground. Because if your data is bad, you will suffer all the way through. We also have a saying, which is garbage in, garbage out. If you start out with crappy data, it will definitely hinder you along the way. As you say, homes that are not discovered, manholes that don't have the capacity that you expect, pipes that are put there, but not with the capacity that you would expect. So it's essential that you start with the best data possible. And I think you described the historical journey quite directly. So way, way back, it was all done on paper. And that was, well, not the best way of doing it. Gradually migrated into CAD, which is, well, ultimately better because you had a digital system, but without any interconnection or any real world connection. And of course, with the GIS data, which is type of data that everyone in the fiber business knows should be the source of anything you do. And GIS data is related to the real world. You can link it to whatever you see in front of you. But the challenge is keeping that data up to date in the system that they're using. Yeah, I think most companies think they have the best processes for maintaining that data. But the reality is there's other priorities of let's just get the new stuff built so we can get customers taken care of. Don't worry about the as-built stuff. We can get around to that later. And getting around to that later leads to procrastination to possibly even never getting done at all, which keeps you in this perpetual cycle. Yeah, definitely. And that adds, for me, also a step to the construction process. Because once you've built it out, there is likely a difference between the planned design and the as-built design. And that difference needs to be captured as well. If that's not done, as you say, it's really a nightmare to keep that straight. And I've heard stories that the guys constructing the actual network then kept a stack of paper in their truck saying, I moved this manhole one meter to the left -hand side or this pipe wasn't really full. I did something else with it. And that's what you absolutely don't want if you have observations in the field that need to be captured as soon as possible to the system of record that's being used. Yeah, the more I have these conversations, the more I hear how much paper is still being used today.