By Buddie Ceronie, GM for Telecommunications, VertiGIS
Following GIS Day on 20 November, it’s important to advocate the many ways GIS enhances and improves our daily lives, such as in telecommunications networks.
GIS offers powerful tools to optimise network design, deployment and end-to-end lifecycle management.
Yet recent discussions on decades of underinvestment, ageing and expensive infrastructure highlight the urgent need for telecom companies to modernise fast.
Managing and maintaining infrastructure is a constant challenge for telcos, but until they adopt a more modern approach and stop trying to tackle today’s challenges with yesterday’s outdated methods and technology, these infrastructure issues will only get bigger and more problematic.
When natural disasters strike, GIS technology can be used in disaster management and recovery, helping to quickly identify damage to assets, such as communication towers and ground satellites. Here, GIS technology can help telcos and local authorities to prioritise recovery efforts.
By integrating real-time data, telecom companies can easily spot the exact location of damages and easily replace these assets, enabling critical services to be quickly restored.
With telecommunication providers frequently merged into parent companies or acquired, a common challenge is understanding the assets within a telco network — and how they are documented.
From design to operation, GIS-based tools and workflows bring everything together into a single system that delivers geographic accuracy and precise visuals to increase productivity, collaboration and transparency.
For telcos looking to expand their services, GIS technology tools help identify underserved areas or regions with high growth potential by analysing demographic, economic and infrastructure data to make data-driven decisions.
With its soaring value, copper theft has increased in recent months, leading to serious damage and disruption of network infrastructure including loss of internet and telephone access. With so many global services relying on superfast connectivity, any theft and damage to infrastructure needs to be well documented.
The importance of accurate network documentation extends throughout the asset lifecycle. This is evident during various stages, including installations, day-to-day network operations and maintenance, but also in securing investments and the value of the telco company.
GIS applications can anticipate future demands, optimise resource allocation and ensure minimal downtime. Therefore, more efficient network planning will be a crucial enabler for delivering high-quality telecom services.
This also means telecom companies can deliver faster, more reliable, integrated networks that can leverage a broad range of digital technologies, maximise revenue and prevent unexpected costs for users.
These issues won’t be fixed overnight, but by leveraging advanced GIS capabilities, traditional network and infrastructure management can be transformed into a spatially aware system that improves planning accuracy, emergency preparedness and operational efficiency in managing telecommunication networks in 2025 and beyond.
