Two competing industry visionaries join forces to tackle telecom’s biggest challenge

Despite the astounding advances in technology the last 30 years, geospatial data and quality in telecommunications has not improved. Why is this? Tom Counts, president and CEO of 3-GIS, and Peter Batty, chief research officer of SSP Innovations, sat down with Host Daniel Litwin to dive into this phenomenon.

This data is essential because it provides a base of truth to dictate decision making. “The GIS set data is the center of the truth. If you don’t know the truth, you’re in trouble. If you want to run a business and you don’t understand your assets, you don’t understand that they’re accurate. It’s hard for you to assign them; it’s impossible for you to provision them; it’s troublesome for you to try to repair them,” Counts stated.

The quicker one can get from the edge to the database, the less likely there is for corruption. People tend to want to go through cycles of review of data, which can corrupt its accuracy. So those extracting data from the edge need to be trained to inspect, recognize and post data in the field and trust for it to come in while only looking for irregularities. 95% of the time it will be accurate and correct. “Having high quality geospatial data is fundamental to being able to quickly diagnose where the problem is and fix it,” Batty said.

Currently, the number of tools available today, such as augmented reality (AR), machine learning and full automation, help improve data quality. For instance, gaming, such as Pokémon Go, is helping to create a map of the world, and home design and AR are also playing a role in improving data quality.

For more information on the geospatial data in the telecommunications sector, visit www.3-GIS.com or subscribe to the Fiberside Chat podcast on Apple iTunes or Spotify.