Create and maintain outside plant and splicing designs of fiber network.

This session was originally presented at IQGeo's 2021 virtual meetup. The session is headlined by guest speaker Nathan Cooley, Manager of Fiber Engineering at Extinet. In this short video, Nathan shares how IQGeo products, tools, and features are used at Extinet and the value it brings to his business. So again, I am the Manager of Fiber Engineering Standards here at Extinet. And again, I'm going to be talking just about really some of the key benefits that we've enjoyed from using the IQGeo platform and Network Manager over the last year and a half now really. Went into production in August 2020 and have been using it fairly non-stop ever since. So next slide, please, Kelly. Just to give you a little bit of background about who we are, what we do, and my role here at the company, we're based really outside of Chicago. We're in the Chicago metro area. And we primarily offer small cell data, Wi-Fi, and some internet solutions, all kinds of different telecom products. We have an enterprise element of our company providing indoor cellular solutions. And of course, to connect all these things, we have really a fairly strategic, robust, growing fiber plant. We have several key markets that we use. Our larger plant in New York City in particular, the Bay Area, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada, and then Minneapolis and St. Paul, where some of our larger footprints are. But we have others in other places, Metroplex in Texas, several networks in Southeast Texas and Houston area. So really all over the place, all over the country. We are fairly well represented. I actually came on in 2016. I was hired originally as a GIS analyst. Sorry for my GIS experience. I was a part of the team whose job was to work extensively with the asphalt that we got from the field. The asset database we were using at the time to map all that information on. So I've kind of learned fiber engineering and fiber construction and infrastructure sort of from like backwards. I like to say, like I started from the drawing to see how it looks. And then I've kind of like, like, like, I've kind of like, like, over the years gained some experience working on it as we map everything into the different systems that we've used. Next slide, please. So as a part of that group, we had a very well established GIS team going back to, I believe, like 2013, 2014, situated within network planning as a whole. In addition to, at the time, the GIS users were responsible for helping map our cost our costing designs and things like that to the company database and getting the cost analysis out. The other task was to map and maintain all of our fiber and associated infrastructure. Hearing some of the, like, historical data challenges over the last couple of days from other folks, I think you guys are pretty familiar with most of the issues that we've run into over the years, particularly with some of our older legacy networks. So that goes back to 2004. So some things that our group ran into, particularly initially, were our older legacy networks and things that were built in 2006, 2007. Things that had been on air for a long time and the original as built documentation was either, you know, missing or in pieces and things like that. We have a very wide array of third party vendors that we use to help us construct our networks and get everything mapped and documented. And it's, as you might expect, and again, as I'm sure many of you are familiar with, the, you know, degree of variability and the kinds of data that we get and as built, we see from our vendors changes depending on whatever market you're in, whatever region you're in, what time of year it was. So the original GIS team was really faced with those kinds of challenges and were really, have been the chief kind of problem that we were at first encountered. To really address that, in 2019, the company set up a couple of different groups, again, inside network planning. We set up our own fiber engineering group. We brought fiber engineering internally. We hired, I believe, five or six guys to do all of our splicing design, to pick, take over the cost analysis designs and things that we were generating. And then also to help us track, you know, the construction, the splicing, every aspect kind of along the way as those networks were contracted and turned up. And then the GIS group was folded into what we call data integrity. Also, I think it's the name of the NEMA team. But it was basically the original GIS team. And they were more or less responsible for making sure that everything was consistent, that, you know, that the data sources, the data types, the fields, the values, and things that we were seeing inside of our data set all made sense with one another. And that was really the way that it's been since 2019. The next challenge after we stood up the group was to find a tool, a platform that would allow us to kind of address all of these things in a really seamless fashion. Right. So, Kelly, next slide, please. So, each group had a very specific sort of set of responsibilities. And in each case, the IQGO platform and NetManager tools ended up being very helpful for both teams in each case. So, in DI, the data integrity team, we were able to break down a lot of the information silos, again, with a company that is nationally split up, you know, with different construction teams and product, you know, project management and all kinds of things like that. And we encountered a lot of different spreadsheets and people that kind of maintained their own data in their own places. And one of the first things that data integrity was really tasked with doing was making sure all of those silos sort of went away and fed into a central repository. And the IQGO NetManager platform was the place that everybody was going to be able to see that. Right. One issue that, you know, that IQGO, as we'll see here in a second, really helped us clear a lot of things up. One is that all of our DI team was actually based out of the corporate headquarters here in Lyle and suburban Chicago, which in an entirely office environment is not necessarily a problem. You have everybody in one location. But obviously, we had, you know, issues come up, right, in 2020. Fiber engineering is a little bit different. All the team members are completely remote. They're split, spread out all across the country. I have a map here in a second. We'll be able to see where all of those remote users are. And those guys were doing things that were more connected to the field anyway. Fiber engineers still serve as the point of contact between the DI NEMA team and all of our internal construction teams and their vendors, which is good because they're also using the NetManager tool for updating all of our networks in flight and then adding the splicing and circuitry. All of that really specific engineering design work that we were farming out at one point and now is within our group. Kelby, next slide, please. So, whenever we started looking for that tool, this is sort of the key needs that we really wanted to look at, right? Again, the original network planning GIS group were all hired for their GIS experience. We were all primarily as re-users. We had a few folks that had done a few different things in MapInfo and things like that. But really, we were looking for a tool that GIS users would be able to just pick up right away. We had a very, very strict deadline whenever we needed to turn IPGO on. And really, we needed to be able to hit the ground running. And a GIS-based interface was very important for us to find to give our users an opportunity to do that and really start hitting the tool pretty hard because we really needed to use it right away. And then it was also important to find, you know, a tool, a data set that was going to be easily pulled into our existing company's PDBs. Again, we're trying to get rid of a lot of those information silos that we used to have. And there's a lot of flexibility in the Postgres environment that we're using for our data in IPGO. And that was, again, a very key element for us to be able to take that and be able to feed it to other, you know, central repositories of our data inside the company. IQGO also provided a lot of flexibility in its use. Again, even though it was easy for the GIS folks to pick it up, I think it's also easy enough for our fiber engineers to be able to pick it up as well. The guys that, unlike us, didn't necessarily have the most GIS experience, guys that are familiar more with tools like AutoCAD, they were able to start jumping in also and easily, you know, splice things together, get our networks down to the strand level and circuit level, adding that data. And getting it done, you know, quickly and easily for them was a very key element for us and one that we were able to do right away. It was very fortunate. A few of our fiber engineers that we actually hired on had previous experience with IPGO tools, so it was easy to sort of get those guys into it. But, again, it all came down to the user interface and the ability to sort of easily navigate. Really, and from here on out, this is going to be the key element here is the speed and mobility. We were tied to a local server with our previous system, the GIS users in particular. We were primarily office bound. If we wanted to get away from the desk to do remote work, it was usually pretty slow. We had a couple of different options like TeamViewer and remoting end and things like that, but none of them were really all that satisfactory. We were really needing something that was a lot more flexible, a lot more remote. Other issues that we ran into with some of our older systems is that we had to use multiple programs and applications for mapping and imagery. It's not uncommon to see a GIS user with, you know, at least two screens, but usually three or more. There was sort of navigating between the GIS, the as-built, you know, Google Earth so we could ground through stuff where we could and sites review. All of those different, you know, places that we were having to navigate to do one job. We were really looking for something that would allow us to consolidate that. And then we were also, you know, looking to find some sort of a platform which IQ .GO covered to roll out to the folks in the field, to our costing teams, our solutions engineering, our NOC, you know, all the different, you know, stakeholders in the data that we, you know, display and keep a hold of. We wanted to have something that extended that mobility to them, that ease of use. And again, IQ.GO sort of check all the boxes for that on that front. And particularly on the UI side and then again on the mobility, as we're going to see here in a second, we're very, very fortunate to have. But really, really fulfilled all the needs we were looking for. Next slide, please, Kelly. As like, again, as all of us sort of experienced in, you know, the March of last year, even though we had all been office bound, you know, we were suddenly all working from home. Right. And again, we were already sort of addressing this issue. This is actually a map here of all of the heavy IQ.GO active users and that were where they were located in 2020. So we, you know, we had guys all over the place. And then now suddenly, too, you know, all of the folks that came into the Lyle office were stuck in their homes and remoting into desks, you know, desktops using virtual machines and things like that. And we'll sort of stop gap, but it really was not really a long term solution. And this isn't even really, again, you know, to note here, like doesn't take into account all of those other stakeholders. Our knock was also suddenly remote. You know, our construction teams, our sales teams, executive leadership. These are folks, too, that were sort of spread all over the place. Having a platform that everybody was just able to pull up on their desktop without having to get into the local server was just an immediate, you know, benefit to the group and to everybody around us, particularly when it came to making edits and things like that. One other aspect that has been very helpful with the, you know, the sort of the fleetness, the mobility of the IQGO tools is that configuration changes are much, much easier than they were in our previous system. In the old days, we had to take care of the data. In the old days, we sort of had to kick everybody out, make the changes to like the default map template. All of those changes, as you know, might expect to take some, typically take some experience with database administration and then say, okay, everybody get rid of your old map templates. You can dip into here and make a new copy. Really kind of inefficient. It took a long time. I've noticed just, again, just in my short time, you know, even like, you know, configuring, administering this tool is that if somebody needs to add a value to a pick list, if somebody needs to update, add a field or create a pick list or change a value or something like that, it's so much quicker, so much easier, able to hop right into the menu, make those changes, and then folks just refresh their browser and they're good to go. So, again, was a fortunate sort of, you know, circumstance that we got this tool right around that time, whenever everything went remote, that we already had something that was coming, that was in place, allowed us to do all of these things and make our jobs a lot easier and quicker and faster to do. Next slide, please, Kelly. Give you a couple of quick case studies of some of the things that we've been able to do with that. Auditing locate costs, again, providing maps for our locate services is a constant sort of effort for us. Obviously, we want to make sure that the information we have in those locate maps is as accurate as possible. We were actually tasked at the end of 2020 with cutting down our locator costs by as much as possible by trying to find the routes that we weren't responsible for and work with our fiber engineers and folks in the field to say, you know, these are other people's conduit. We were able to basically immediately create a pick list. That pick list was able to, you know, show up again in everybody's browser, deployed it to production. And then we were able to start going through and auditing that network to find those conduit that weren't ours so that we can take that off the balance sheet, right? And say, this is not anything we need to pay for. We still push all of our data to a SQL database. Again, when we're talking about the kind of connectivity between the different data sources within the company, that's an option that we have. And our executive leadership and construction teams were able to see those changes to the locate field right away. And then in a lot of cases, too, our database administrator at the time was even able to go through and update a lot of those records inside the Postgres table itself. And then we could see that, obviously, in the user interface. So very, very helpful. In a very short period of time, we were able to audit a lot of that and get those things sort of taken care of so we weren't sending out, you know, useless locates and spending a lot of extra money on that kind of thing. And then on a second, more kind of like, I really like this as more of like an example of where we can go and where we would like to go next as a company. Sort of illustrative of a big benefit that I see in it, right? It's being able to personally do some like minor QA, QC, C, and fly. I'm, again, responsible in part in my job to make sure that people are using the tool correctly and putting in the values and attributes correctly that they should be and mapping everything to the standard that we sort of established for ourselves. And it's been really, really helpful. And that, again, in a fully remote environment, I've been able to get an update from our data integrity manager that says, I noticed something weird in this latest report. What do you think is going on? Generally speaking, I'm able to just get into the desktop and navigate those places. In a couple of instances, I've been away from my desk, you know, a light happens and you are, you know, doing various things around the house with the kids or whatever. And just as like a test, you know, I was able to say like, you know, instead of waiting to get back to my desk, open up the mobile web browser on my phone, find that spot, navigate to it immediately, make the change, and then you can see it right away. So that has been, for me personally, a really, really impressive element to all of this. It has made our jobs a lot easier to be able to navigate those places and find them that quickly. And then, you know, really seamlessly incorporate those changes into the database. Next slide, please, Kelly. So on that note, you know, the future kind of plans that we have for the tool, the mobility is one that I personally am kind of making it my personal mission to increase the mobile use company-wide, right? Auditing our legacy networks is going to be really crucial for us. Again, some of those older things that we have lost the data over the years in some cases or it's incomplete in others. We need to know what's in those places because we might need to, you know, maybe there's conduit that we could, you know, utilize that we're not using or extra, you know, extra strands on a cable that we're not using or, you know, all kinds of different things that are out there that we're lacking at the moment. And I think that that mobile use is going to be really, really helpful in helping us get out there and document those things and capture them in a way that gets immediately back to the desktop. I would really like to experiment more with redlining with capture, get, you know, a version of this tool, you know, into the hands of some of our construction vendors, cut down the need of those paper maps. We're always sitting around or, you know, historically been sort of sitting around waiting for, you know, if you immediately get capture it, you know, and field, our desktop users can see that pop up right away, as we've seen, you know, in the NetManager demos today. And get that incorporated into our database immediately rather than, you know, whenever it is the paper documents. And really like to streamline our budgetary design process, incorporate that stuff into the fiber network design. Again, we saw a really fantastic demonstration of NRO. Personally, I've been really impressed with NRO and really would like to get that tool in the hands of our internal process and to our solutions engineers so they can start getting that data into the database. And then, again, immediately get that loaded into the network manager. And then it's just part of the database. And then finally, I would really like to link our Fusion data with the construction tracking software that we use. Again, our mission as a company has been to collapse a lot of those silos and incorporate a lot of data to one single location and to one spot. And I think Fusion is very capable and very well suited in terms of its, you know, ease of access and the data kind of model that it uses to be able to, you know, integrate a lot of that that gets put in there into things like Power BI and stuff that has a very high visibility with our, you know, C-level folks and sales and anybody else in the company that really needs to maximize the use of that data. So just a few of the things that we're really looking on. Again, we've gotten a lot out of it already. It's been a great tool for us personally, you know, for the key users on a daily basis. It makes our jobs a lot easier working from home as we've been. And we're really excited to pursue these sorts of, you know, processes and really incorporate them sort of company-wide. So next slide, Kelly. Thank you guys again. Thank you again to Kelly and Steve and Kelly in particular for helping me with my technical issue there and running the slide deck for me. And then again to Kyle Berg for being our point of contact on all kinds of things and also for inviting me to speak today. And thank you guys very much.