The Need for Speed: Optimizing Fiber Network Management 

According to Cisco, the number of global internet connected devices is estimated to hit 50 billion in 2020. This demand, coupled with an increasingly competitive telecommunication industry, is forcing internet service providers (ISPs) to reduce subscription prices and continuously find better ways of optimizing and automating operational processes to support faster adoption.

One method of increasing productivity within an organization is optimizing data workflows, promoting cooperation across departments, and integrating operational tools. For ISPs, this is most often applied through a fiber management platform, which improves visibility into existing infrastructure, and acts as a centralized “single source of truth” between teams during different phases of deployment or network expansion.

Last month’s ISE Expo brought together telecom vendors for the sole purpose of improving network deployment automation to meet the ever-increasing demand for bandwidth. The majority of TechTalks and seminars focus on how telecom professionals should share infrastructure, and use software automation tools to improve insights and enable more efficient network design, construction, and operation. Additionally, industry partnerships are becoming more common as individual parties dial in on their core competencies and look to external relationships to fill the gaps and provide a more robust solution to the end user. 

Engineering firms, electric cooperatives, contractors, and ISPs alike discussed the desire and necessity to improve workflows, remove data silos and expose information across project teams, and migrate off of legacy systems and equipment. The need for speed is real; those who make it to market with a quality fiber network first win the business. Reducing transport and bringing data to the edge is also a top priority for many ISPs, as it would allow users to directly access the cloud instead of paying for long-haul transit routes. 

Keeping up with and selectively adopting advancements is essential to remaining a relevant part of tomorrow’s fiber networks, and the landscape is rapidly changing. The key to a competitive advantage? New hardware and software, automated splicing in the field, shared conduit space, efficient data migration and collection, and optimizing visual workflows.

VETRO FiberMap is a leader in innovation, workflow automation, and data sharing across entire enterprises. Our intuitive fiber management platform makes connectivity a breeze for your team, and will allow you to unlock the value of any unused capacity in your network. Find out how our customers have cut back on deployment time by as much as 50% by attending one of our live demos or connecting directly.