How to Succeed at GIS
Data managers at the GIS Broadband
Workshop held at the Cable Center in
late December talked about obstacles
they’ve had to overcome in implementing geographic information systems (GIS)
at their respective companies.
One of the biggest challenges has
simply been time. It takes a few years
to update a large operator’s subscriber
databank with GIS data.
Charter started working on a GIS
system in the late 1990s. Since then, the
GIS engineers have seen a variety of database software come and go, have had
to regularly ask senior management for
funds to keep moving forward, and have
had to learn ways to deal with resistance
to change from other departments.
James Pierce, senior director of HFC
engineering and GIS at Charter, learned
that it was important to think about the
business case for GIS. He garnered
support from regional general managers
when he was able to show them the
amount of money they could save on
non-deliverable mail if they cleaned up
their address databases.
GIS ID tags, easy does it
Pierce recommends including an identifier within the company’s billing system to
track each sub that is added as a result of
GIS. That way the data itself can support
budget requests from the GIS department. And the GIS-tagged data can be
sorted in a variety of ways to support the
marketing department, as well.
“It’s really an opportunity to use GIS to
solve business needs,” he said.
Yet, even though MSOs stand to add
subscribers by synching their footprint
address databases with GIS, the Information Services (IS) department is likely to
resist the change. Why?
One engineer at the GIS conference
explained that IS people get evaluated
based on subscriber penetration numbers. If they have 80 percent penetra-
tion in their area and then the GIS folks
add a big batch of new addresses, their
penetration percentage number could
take a nosedive.
One way to play nice with IS departments is to update the address database
gradually, rather than in large batches.
At Charter, the GIS engineers have
been able to overcome the obstacles.
They have cleansed the company’s billing address system with GIS data and
launched a successful serviceability tool.
The next step will be using GIS for plant
management. Charter has made a request for proposals (RFP) for a fiber management and RF management system,
in which GIS will map plant elements
such as taps, amplifiers and nodes.
CableLabs to MSOs: GIS Do It
CableLabs hopes to improve its Go-
2Broadband project with GIS technology.
Go2Broadband is the CableLabs’ system that collects data from MSOs about
the location of their plant. CableLabs
then uses that data to help recommendation companies line customers up
with the best service providers for their
geographic region.
“It (Go2Broadband) has been running
since 2000 and is extremely successful,” said David Agranoff, senior software
engineer with CableLabs, who presented
at the GIS Broadband Workshop. Besides
online sites that give provider recommendations to consumers, retailers such
as BestBuy and Walmart use Go2Broad-
band’s information to help customers
find a service provider.
Go2Broadband has been using the
U.S. Postal Service’s Zip+ 4 system to organize its MSO data. “It’s fairly accurate,
but there are a lot of problems with it,”
said Agranoff.
He said the Zip+ 4 data doesn’t work
very well with apartment buildings, and
there are areas not covered adequately
such as greenfield developments and tour-
ist towns. The Go2Broadband architects
at CableLabs are hoping that the MSOs
implement GIS into their databases and
make that available to CableLabs, which
can act as a neutral party to share sensitive footprint data.
“We’re kind of at the mercy of the
cable operators to implement it themselves,” said Agranoff. But he’s optimistic
that operators are starting to move forward with GIS. “Last year at this conference it was more ‘how are we going to
get the buy-in?’”
At the conference, Stephen Baker,
manager network inventory at Cox Communications, said the operator has been
developing a GIS system for four years
and is almost ready to implement it.
CableLabs wants to use GIS to beef
up its database for other opportunities. “One is business or commercial
services,” said Agranoff. “All the cable
operators are getting into this. We’re
looking to provide a Go2Broadband for
the commercial sector.”
SCTE launches project
Separately, the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) has
undertaken work to provide symbol and
related standards to help the industry
leverage efficiencies inherent in the
network maps used in GIS.
This new SCTE standards project is
expected to address elements integral
to today’s network mapping. A defined
set of Web services for data-exchange
capabilities also will be considered.
The SCTE has assigned this project to
its Interface Practices and In-Home Cabling Subcommittee (IPS). IPS is one of
six standards-developing subcommittees
under the SCTE Engineering Committee,
which oversees the American National
Standards Institute (ANSI)-accredited
SCTE Standards Program.
