Fiber optic network planning and design
FTTH / FTTX / GPON network planning and design
High level FTTx network concept
In connection with the European Digital Agenda, European Commission prepared set of directives to fulfil its requirements. Many telecom operators take part in the announced competitions being conducted under domestic Operational Programmes. Part of the entities have already acquired, and some just now try to obtain financial support from the EU funds for the construction of NGA fibre optic network in so-called “white spots” areas.
Meeting the needs of telecommunication entrepreneurs, we have prepared software that is designed to support their activities both at the stage of their competition application submission, as well as during further works related to the preparation of investments, implementation and subsequent maintenance thereof.
Geospatial Network Inventory
The offered solution consists of several products, which integrated with each other give the operator full support in the management of network infrastructure. This solution supports FTTx network planning, design and build process. Recipients on this solution are enterprise on: general contractors, project offices, ISP, telecoms. Focusing first on the FTTx network planning stage in terms of the offered software, we propose the use of Geospatial Network Inventory (GNI) product in its free version (GNI FREE). For the next stages of FTTx network planning, design and build we offers GNI Design Studio.
Geospatial Network Inventory (GNI) is a system of geospatial telecom resource inventory. It is designed for operators who construct, develop and maintain their network infrastructure. The application architecture is based on the QGIS geospatial platform. Due to the fully-featured GIS interface and using its huge functional potential, we have created a product fully meeting the requirements of a modern telecom operator. Based on the analysis of European Digital Agenda requirements and FTTH Council guidelines GNI (Geospatial Network Inventory) distribution was created which is intended to support this project. Free version functionality scope helps network operators, planners and designers in preparation of FTTH network high-level technical concept including:
GNI Design Studio commercial licence system extends the functionality scope among others with:
– Base map, for civil infrastructure
– Work task for designed assets located on Base map
– FTTH cable layout on Base map
– Splice closures and cable slacks layout on Base map with GPS coordinates
– Splicing schema for cable layout.
– Rackdraw and floorplan for Central Office and MDU Buildings
– BoM (Bill of Materials) for designed area including materials and services
– Serving Area report for designed area
– PON power budget as loss reports for designed cables
– Duct segment report for designed cable layout
FTTx related scope of support
A detailed description of the use of free and commercial version of Geospatial Network Inventory is presented in the following table.
| Functional features | Requirements | Available in the product |
|---|---|---|
| Inventory of cable modelsm | Standard QGIS version | GNI FREE |
| Creating cable routes layer | Standard QGIS version + linear layer (e.g. OpenStreet) + QGIS plugins | GNI FREE |
| Work organized in ‘work orders’ | QGIS plugins | GNI FREE |
| Clustering of demand data | QGIS plugins | GNI FREE |
| Proposed cabling and splice closure distribution | FTTH network planning algorithms | GNI FREE |
| Cable profile and model selection | FTTH network planning algorithms | GNI FREE |
| Versioning of planned network concepts | Standard QGIS version + FTTH network planning algorithms | GNI FREE |
| List of cables and splice closures for the developed network concept | QGIS plugins | GNI FREE |
| List of address points assigned to respective cables | QGIS plugins | GNI FREE |
| Address point’s share in FTTH path cost | QGIS plugins | GNI FREE |
| Exporting cable routes and splice closures to SHP file | Standard QGIS version | GNI FREE |
| Automatic generation of list of activities related to construction of individual network segments | Resource and service catalog inventory | GNI Design Studio |
| List of materials and activities costs related to planned network deployment | Resource and service catalog inventory | GNI Design Studio |
| Cost estimation based on cabling technology | Resource and service catalog inventory | GNI Design Studio |
| Business area | Primary functional elements | Available in the product |
|---|---|---|
| Network inventory | Civil infrastructure, cables, splice closures, central office equipment, devices, cards, ports, splices, connections, floor plan, space colocation, fibre distribution schema, attenuation balance | GNI |
| FTTx network design and build | FTTx construction pack including: duct layout on base map, cable layout, splicing diagram, Rackdraw, BoM, serving area, PON power budget | GNI Design Studio |
| Support for network processes | Network expansion, failure management, network maintenance, customer installations, leases | GNI Design Studio |
| Support for sales processes | Free/available fibres in a specified optical relation, free resources, technical feasibility checks | GNI Design Studio |
Results of use
Cabling of one municipality with an average number of address points is performed in 5 to 10 minutes on a computer with standard hardware parameters. In case of carrying out the whole process, the following products are obtained:
Results lists:
GNI Design Studio products (printable document):
– Civil infrastructure (buildings, roads, duct network, manholes, poles, cabinets, meter walls,CO)
– Map styling including different line styles, point object symbols
– Identified critical design work task
– Cable layout on civil infrastructure (all cables)
– Cable termination nodes (CO, Splice Closures, Fiber Distribution Hubs, Access Points)
– Cable styling
storage indices
Resources
A short presentation on how to prepare FTTH/GPON network conceptual design in QGIS using accessible public data.
Using QGIS for FTTH/GPON network planning due to the implementation European Digital Agenda
FTTH network conceptual design for Polish implementation of European Digital Agenda
FTTH Network deployment in city modelled in GNI system
A link to QGIS website with FTTH network planning case study
Download GNI FREE version
The version of Geospatial Network Inventory in the distribution supporting the planning of FTTx/GPON network is available in several variants:
If you are interested in a commercial version, please o contact us.