Automating Fiber Network Design: The Critical Breakthrough

Transcription

1 TELCORDIA IS NOW PART OF ERICSSON SINCE JANUARY 2012 white paper Automating Fiber Network Design: The Critical Breakthrough Abstract Growth in fiber-based broadband and the associated network buildouts is exploding worldwide, as service providers race to satisfy demand for bandwidth-intensive services. But the pace of growth is being compromised by highly manual methods of network design. By taking advantage of leading-edge tools that provide advanced modeling, simulation, and automation capabilities, carriers can dramatically accelerate and reduce the cost of their fiber buildout programs, keeping pace with rapidly growing demand.

2 Page 2 of 7 Introduction Fiber-based access investment is expected to result in a cumulative global total of more than $60 billion by 2015, with markedly high spending levels likely to continue until The spend is being driven by powerful market forces: customers now expect an ever-improving service experience; competitive pressures continue to increase; and voice revenues continue to decline. Many communications service providers (CSPs) are under-prepared to deal with the rapid growth in demand for high-speed internet and video services such as IPTV and HDTV. The rate of growth is making traditional manual methods of fiber network buildout untenable. Manual methods lack scalability and are simply too labor-intensive, too slow, too expensive, and too inconsistent in terms of results. Unless they can automate the critical fiber network design process, all the way from plan to provision, carriers will fail their customers, fall behind competitors, and lose out on vital new revenue opportunities. Fiber Network Design Challenges When it comes to large fiber network rollouts, network design is an extremely complex job that can tax any service provider from both a cost and personnel standpoint. It can take considerable time for even the most experienced designer to complete the steps involved by hand and to make the many individual decisions about equipment placement in a network layout. When planners and designers have less experience or understanding of engineering guidelines, buildouts can take even more time and money. Faced with the scale and complexity of a full-blown fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) rollout, today s engineering teams are rightly daunted. Consider the sheer volume of work involved in a FTTH project. A typical fiber design work package covers a single fiber serving area (FSA) of typically homes, each of which is connected to the serving network via a common access node. This amounts to approximately 20 kilometers of fiber cable that must be run, along with 300 pieces of equipment placed, per FSA. Assuming on average 10 connections per piece of equipment, more than 3,000 individual connections must be specified and made. Now extrapolate these numbers to a FTTH project with a goal of one million homes passed: 5,000 work packages must be completed, each one detailing workprints, schematics, the wire run list, bills of material, and so on; 100,000km of fiber has to be laid, all of it specified by fiber type, fiber size, routing, and splice points; 1,500,000 individual pieces of equipment will be used, specified by type, unit size, and location; field personnel will make 15,000,000 connections each specified by splicing and cross-connects. The bottom line is that for a one million home deployment, upwards of 20 million items have to be specified. Number of Each to be Specified Per Fiber Serving Area Full FTTH Deployment Number of Homes Number of Fiber Serving Areas Kilometers of Fiber Number of Pieces of Equipment Number of Connections ,000 1,000,000 5, ,000 1,500,000 15,000,000 Figure 1 Specifications required for FTTH deployment

3 Page 3 of 7 By a conservative estimate, each FSA takes approximately 20 days to design, meaning a workload of some 100,000 days for a one million home rollout. Four hundred years of effort. Or a design team of 40 working flat out for the next decade. Design automation is indeed critical to the success of fiber rollout. The Conventional Design Process The traditional approach to network design involves manual walkouts, manual field redlines on paper, and manual creation of service qualification data. All data has to be manually transcribed for design and detailed work instructions. Once field detail is manually collected, high level design begins, possibly with a print from a computer aided design (CAD) program that provides a rough drawing of the original network. From that, the detailed engineering design is completed, which provides the basis for all build activity as well as records. Engineering drawings are copied and given to construction personnel, who then redline any changes to the build plan on the same drawing, using a red pencil. Service qualification spreadsheets are created by manually transposing data from paper copies of coverage areas. Since all information is on paper, there is no way to easily export data for enterprise information sharing. Imagine the errors that are introduced and then propagated throughout the organization. Obviously, traditional rollout approaches cannot adequately address the enormous scale and complexity. Competitive realities add an urgency to deliver in aggressive timeframes, yet cost containment parameters almost always preclude the hiring of more personnel to handle the crushing workload. The Key to Automating Fiber Design Fiber design automation then, has moved beyond nice to have to impossible without. But what makes automation so difficult and why is it possible now when it was not before? With millions of objects to be specified, imagine the multibillions of combinations that provide workable solutions. Variations on the equipment used, location and sizing, customers served by that equipment, multiple connection possibilities this is the very essence of the problem. With so many possibilities, it s clear that each designer doing this task manually would come up with an individualized solution based on his preferences and his experience. Resulting designs would be inconsistent from designer to designer, confusing and confounding construction, repair, provisioning, and any other person trying to unravel the variegations. Automating fiber design requires a combination of multiple information technologies and mathematical techniques in a single software platform: Scalable and sufficiently detailed digitized land base information and the ability to digitize additional information including historical paper records Ready access to information in a geospatial format alongside the ability to easily model communications networks in that same format, without specialist and expensive IT integration Repeatable, customizable design algorithms, or rule sets, capable of incorporating physical, logical, demographic, and commercial data Advanced mathematical/topological techniques such as graph theory, shortest path algorithms, and enabling heuristics that minimize long isolated cable runs Smart software systems able to manage thousands of design parameters and choices in real time

4 Page 4 of 7 Robust, scalable, extensible systems capable of modeling a very large and complex inventory of network asset data, including multiple versions of the same design at the same time The ability, where necessary, to influence the result by modifying demand, changing the location of potential equipment location, modifying potential path data, etc. With all of the data readily available and the ability to process the multifaceted combinations while adhering to engineering rule sets, the outcome is not only near-optimal results, but work orders that are consistent from design to design, independent of the person at the control, the geography under consideration, or the technology to be deployed. With these assets in hand, the four-step Plan-to-Provision process for FTTH can be dramatically accelerated. Turbo-Charging the Fiber Design Process The automated solution built on a graphical information system (GIS) foundation that provides a geospatial context to design and record all of the location-based network information will have a dramatic, positive effect on all four steps of the FTTH planning, design, and rollout process. 1: Define Fiber Serving Area (FSA) Outline market boundaries and locate demand points 2: Establish Civil Infrastructure Design conduits, poles, manholes 3: Design Telecom Network Design equipment, cables, and connections 4: Create Work Order Package Package the design work for downstream processes Ready for Build Figure 2 Automation is needed to support Plan-to-Provision process steps 1. Define the Fiber Serving Area (FSA) Without automation, all of the required information to determine the FSA boundaries must be gathered from multiple sources, including field walk-outs. Some data may be missing or difficult to obtain, and analyzing information is not only manually intensive, but makes it impossible to find any sort of optimal solution. An automated solution shows the type of dwelling units and other buildings within a selected geographic boundary, allowing planners to validate demand, set appropriate engineering rules, and insure viable and cost-effective high-level designs.

5 Page 5 of 7 2. Establish the Civil Infrastructure (conduits, poles, manholes, etc.) Traditionally, providers have had to rely on paper records or CAD drawings, looking at each dwelling unit, identifying existing buried and aerial infrastructure, and deciding if it could be used. They would consider the dwelling in relation to usable civil infrastructure and the street, how the feeder relates to distribution, and whether the main road has enough pole space or conduit to service each location. An automated solution, in contrast, identifies all civil infrastructure components and ensures that they can support the build, showing how each and every dwelling will be supported. The designer quickly sees what is available in an area, and the automated solution highlights gaps and suggests ways to fill them all before the fiber design process, so rework is greatly reduced. 3. Design the Telecom Network What kind and how much fiber should be used for each dwelling unit? Do you run single, dual, or quad fibers? How is service delivered from the access point to the customer? An automated solution answers all of these questions and more. For every dwelling, it determines how and what equipment will be placed to satisfy customer demand, taking into consideration the backup dictated by built-in engineering rules for each dwelling and each design. Everything can be automated, from choosing the right fiber type and size of the serving terminal, to how traffic is aggregated, to ensuring connectivity all the way to the dwelling unit. But stops and checks are typically created along the way so the engineer can insure that necessary exceptions are fully taken into account. 4. Create the Work Order Package Instead of the usual error-prone, inefficient manual processes, the solution automatically generates electronic bills of material that feed into financial systems, in addition to workprints, schematics, and trace reports for acceptance testing, making sure everything is consistent. Everyone gets the paperwork they need (e.g., procurement, field services, etc.), with views created specifically to meet their needs. An effective Plan-to-Provision solution, then, automates the entire four-step process, including the design of civil infrastructure, cable runs, equipment configuration, and fiber connectivity. It enforces industry-standard and company-specific engineering design rules automatically, every time, using consistent rules and consistent records a marked difference from the idiosyncratic, ultimately frustrating individuality of past copper design. Realizing Financial and Other Benefits The consistent adherence to standards ensures superior network configuration throughout the project, with optimal choices in civil and cable routing, equipment selection and sizing, and connections. The predictability and consistent quality lowers both deployment and maintenance costs, and reduces provisioning complexity. More consistent network deployment also makes it much easier to accurately predict capital needs. Each step in the Plan-to-Provision process is more effectively accomplished, more quickly. Engineering time is reduced across the board. Not only is the design process automated, but work plans for construction are automatically generated as well as reports used for the creation of facility and service qualification records. Data needs to be very rarely, if ever, transposed for various uses. As a result, key performance indicators such as design time per FSA, cost per home passed, and homes passed per designer are all positively impacted, and individual tasks can be cut dramatically, as seen in Figure 3.

6 Page 6 of 7 Define Fiber Serving Area 20 Hours 4 Hours Before After Establish Civil Infrastructure 1 Hours 40 Hours Build Telecom Network 8 Hours 80 Hours Create Work Order Package 20 Hours 10 Hours Figure 3 Time savings on key design tasks Overall, an automated solution can result in 35% less planning and design time and cost, with 12% less construction effort, and 50% less rework. Reducing the full FTTH capital outlay by a mere 2.5% translates to a major bottom line impact for service providers of any size. Three to five million dollars are typically saved for every 100,000 homes passed, so that overall savings can amount to $100 million or more. (These numbers reflect an average of several actual FTTH rollouts using an automated Plan-to-Provision solution.) FTTH network inventory data and details are centrally and permanently stored, providing a reference database of record for all FTTH access network inventory. Aside from more accurate financial planning as noted above, various enterprise departments can operate more effectively: GIS location information enables better marketing and sale of services. With an end-to-end physical path for reference, provisioning is simplified for greater throughput and efficiency. The accurate view of network components and connectivity increases the efficiency of installation and repair activities. Automating Plan-to-Provision improves service management, allowing automation of maintenance and event notifications with the relevant network trace. Cable dispatch/repair people can more quickly determine the location of network equipment and cables. More consistent network configuration assures reliable performance of equipment and service throughout the network. With work order-driven material requisitions, procurement can be streamlined and achieve just-in-time status.

7 Page 7 of 7 Planning & Marketing Capital spend predictability Faster customer qualification Provisioning & Installation Simplified provisioning Consistant/repeatable processes Service Management Shortened Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) Automated event and maintenance processes Financial Management Efficient capital asset tracking Accurate financial reporting Figure 4 Benefits across the enterprise Automation: The Solution to Market Demands Design automation is a critical requirement for the fast, efficient rollout of fiber on a mass-market basis, making those rollouts competitively feasible. With an automated, scalable Plan-to-Provision solution, engineers can be used more efficiently and new hires can be avoided. A traditionally normal design cycle time of three to six weeks between decision and build out is cut to five days or less. Automation ensures that network design can be successfully rolled out the first time, every time, allowing providers to increase the subscriber base faster, with complete data integrity. The right combination of information technologies and encapsulation of design rules are the vital prerequisites to automating fiber design, and thus to realizing the potential of rising demand for high-bandwidth services. For more information about Telcordia, contact your local account executive, or you can reach us at: (U.S. and Canada) +44 (0) (Europe) (all other countries) info@telcordia.com Copyright 2011 Telcordia Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. MC-COR-WP-035