Fibre, Fibre, Fibre!
It was exciting seeing the remarkable progress and innovation coming out of Connected Britain 2023, the UK’s premier event for the telecoms and connectivity industry. This year 5,400 attendees filled the London ExCeL convention center, and while the mobile market was discussed, the hot topic on everyone’s mind was momentum around fibre broadband. Project Gigabit and the voucher program (focused on digital inclusion), significant continued investment into the fibre sector, and the 80+ altnets in the region were all big topics. And it’s no surprise, with a 52% increase in the number of full fibre lines over the past year in the UK!
For Sitetracker, it was a perfect moment to launch Sitetracker GIS Link, our new productized integration with Esri ArcGIS. The solution promises to revolutionize how network operators, engineering, and construction companies expedite the rollout of fibre broadband by seamlessly merging construction plans with geographic information systems (GIS) data.
Lots of enthusiasm.
Launching a product takes a lot of prep work, and it’s great to see people’s reactions once it’s out in the world. In the case of GIS Link, we had the opportunity to showcase the solution in our booth and we led a session on the ways to boost fibre deployment efficiency where Matt Michel, one of our talented solutions engineers, gave a live demonstration to the audience. The excitement around the new product and the very real problems it solves, such as the handoff of geospatial designs from design to construction teams, was palpable. It was great having the opportunity to talk to customers who own GIS at their organizations and hear how GIS Link will make their jobs easier.
Why are fibre companies excited about Sitetracker GIS Link?
A few things really stood out when I talked to people:
- Connecting geospatial data with projects and jobs in Sitetracker is going to streamline design and construction workflows ensuring it’s easy to share designs and assign work for each segment
- Having a better way to collaborate will greatly align teams and save time
- The timeline slider was a really cool way to view the network buildout over time
- Additional wireless use cases came up outside of fibre as well—there are lots of potential applications for this product
EV at a Telecom show!
One of the other highlights for me was sitting in the fantastic session with our customer Connected Kerb talking about, “Advancing Connectivity’s Role in Enabling Smart Utilities.” There was an interesting discussion about the natural crossover between deploying 5G and deploying EV stations. Something that naturally interested me, as Sitetracker has done that crossover as well due to the similar nature of high volume repeatable projects.
Connected Britain had a ton of learning opportunities as well as chances to build relationships and see what companies in all areas of telecom in the region are doing. From filling the UK’s digital skills gap to capitalizing on the potential of 5G and gigabit broadband–there is a ton of great work happening throughout England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland that is bringing innovation and new levels of connectivity to people in the area. Sitetracker is proud to be powering both wireless and wireline deployments across the UK and working with innovative companies like BT, Vodafone, Trooli, Community Fibre, Obelisk, and more to accelerate a fully connected and sustainable future.
To learn more about Sitetracker GIS Link, join us on November 2 at 4 pm BST for Mapping the Future: Sitetracker’s GIS Link for Accelerated Deployment for an exclusive look. Save your seat here.
