Putting Network Management into High Gear

FiberLight, LLC, is a fiber infrastructure provider with more than 20 years of construction experience in building and operating mission-critical, high-bandwidth networks. FiberLight is focused on delivering solutions for complete operational control, security, and scalability, improving business operations and provisioning peace of mind for network and data center providers for large enterprises across the US. To deliver this capability, it requires network management solutions that keeps it on track to deliver some of the most agile, secure, scalable, reliable, and flexible custom services in the industry.

Challenge

FiberLight's mission is to deliver one-of-a-kind fiber networks that ignite digital transformation with an emphasis on simplicity. To achieve this goal, three processes were identified for improvement:

• Use of network planning to identify where to place features
• Ability to cost the path of a network across multiple boundaries in metropolitan areas
• Ability to have a view of the utilization of fiber assets for financial reporting

The FiberLight network spans many areas in the United States including Arlington, Virginia; Atlanta, Georgia; Baltimore, Maryland; Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio, Texas; Tampa, Florida; and Washington, DC.

Complicated processes for maintaining and updating fiber inventory using static spreadsheet data created a lag in the marketing of available inventory and an unclear picture of asset utilization needed for financial reporting. Because the network routes crossed multiple metropolitan boundaries, reporting the costing and utilization of the network was out of phase with the actual activity on the network. The financial impact was felt on both the revenue and cost sides of the business.

"With a constant focus on simplicity, FiberLight has made it our mission to drive reliability for businesses, improve reach for network solutions, and enable partners," said Jay Anderson, FiberLight's regional vice president of network expansion. "We seek vendors, like 3-GIS, that ignite our strategies. Our culture of hustle allows us to respond better than anyone else in the industry, enabling higher-touch relationships with lasting business value."

Solution

The complexities of planning a fiber network can result in an expensive, time-consuming manual process. To help speed design and planning, FiberLight used the Prospector solution from 3-GIS. Prospector is a web-based service for designing smarter fiber networks built using the Esri ArcGIS software. This includes automation and rules-based calculations for planning routes and providing accurate cost estimates within minutes. The 3-GIS Web software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution employs a multimodal technique to examine specific network variables and datasets defined by engineers, such as existing infrastructure, regulations, geographic barriers, and construction costs. It then uses an architectural engine to prescribe routes and place network features. The automated routing found new revenue opportunities that provided the economic incentives to increase the scale of production. With a single view of its fiber and ancillary network data, FiberLight could target market campaigns to available resources.

Using geographic information system (GIS) technology, FiberLight was operationally able to document the connectivity of the fiber strands and report available resources and asset utilization, thereby reducing municipal and regulatory reporting efforts.

Results

• More than 3,100 signal updates to reconcile inventory
• Faster network routing and readiness to submit permits
• Reduced cost of network construction
• Reduced time for municipal and regulatory reporting
•  Better field operations

3-GIS has developed a system that can be highly flexible to support multiple aspects of our business. It's not just a tool for construction or outside engineering but is leveraged to drive new revenue and help our sales team leverage existing and upcoming assets.                                                 —Jay Anderson, Chief Engineer, FiberLight