Guest post by Wade Anderson, Vice President, SMB, IQGeo
5G is predicted to have the same economic impact on the US as commercializing the internet did 25 years ago. The technology is the motor of a new data economy built around artificial intelligence, autonomy, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things. 5G is essential to produce and transport data and new knowledge faster and more seamlessly to support an increasingly digital and interconnected economy. The proliferation of IoT applications across industries is showing no signs of slowing down, presenting a huge opportunity for business growth. According to GSMA, the global IoT market will be worth $900 billion in revenue by 2025 – an almost threefold increase on 2019.
With global 5G adoption expected to almost triple in 2021, the distribution of telecoms networks will need to grow to match this projected demand. The US has ambitious plans to achieve nationwide 5G coverage through a combination of state incentives and market forces. The Biden administration pledged $100bn to improve broadband infrastructure across the nation, with the ultimate aim of providing high-speed broadband connectivity for all Americans by 2029. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring connectivity for all has risen further up the agenda for the telecoms industry and for municipalities, government agencies, universities and corporates that support their own fiber and 5G networks.
Major US telecoms providers are deploying superfast Ultra-Wideband 5G services across cities, stadia, and airports. The US is also ahead of many other advanced countries in allocating high-band and low-band spectra for 5G. North America has the world’s largest share of the market in ‘dark fiber’, unused additional capacity that could help share and spread 5G coverage. Yet the breadth of coverage is patchy and inconsistent and lags behind competitors such as South Korea and China. There has been growing frustration with the pace of the rollout across much of the US. There are also concerns over the lack of market diversity and the limited number of vendors following the US ban on Huawei. There remain major challenges in filling gaps in provision, particularly in remote and rural areas where major new infrastructure investment from large providers is unviable. Currently, it is estimated that over a third of Americans living in rural areas lack access to a quality standard of broadband.
Yet the expansion of high-speed broadband to all states and regions is essential to ensure equality of connectivity. To reach rural or small-town locations we cannot rely solely on major telecoms operators but need a diverse market of innovative providers, Wireless Internet service providers (WISPs), and organizations such as transport, governmental, and commercial operators willing to lease out bandwidth. These smaller providers can help complement large networks to reach under-served areas that may not be commercially viable for major infrastructure investment.
Tackling information silos to accelerate rollout
A major challenge that organizations continue to face is the existence of information silos which prevent organizations from planning the most efficient and effective paths to new markets and wider coverage. There is often a lack of structured network documentation as many smaller operators have not implemented a System of Record (SoR) which identifies an authoritative data source for each data element. In addition, there continue to be silos between workflows such as maintenance and construction and between datasets such as geospatial data and data such as asset records, repairs, or upgrades. Providers need to be able to integrate everything from meteorological to economic data with internal processes and workflows to spot new hazards or opportunities.
For example, data from the nearby natural or built environment, such as trees that could obstruct signals or tall buildings that could host 5G antennae, is crucial to maintenance schedules and planning new provision. Similarly, integrating accurate geospatial information on existing networks with data on nearby infrastructure would help organizations identify opportunities to lease out ‘dark fiber’ to others, thereby organically increasing nationwide 5G networks. Open, decentralized internal data is critical to speed up the deployment of 5G and foster a healthy, competitive culture across the industry. A diverse, dynamic telecoms market able to collectively achieve nationwide coverage will require more open and dynamic telecoms data.
To facilitate more agile broadband infrastructure planning, organizations must develop system of record (SoR) strategies and break down internal silos by encouraging efficient and joined-up data sharing. Operators should make their internal geospatial network data accessible to all departments so they can seamlessly incorporate external data such as street maps or satellite data into all their survey, construction, and maintenance processes. Geospatial network data forms a ‘digital thread’ connecting all external data to a specific location in the network and thus revealing the subtle interdependencies between networks and their local environment.
Opening up their internal systems so that disparate departments and divisions can seamlessly incorporate relevant external data into all processes. For example, IBM Weather Group’s LIDAR and satellite data on vegetation cover could be overlaid onto geospatial network data to help companies plan new 5G antennae to minimize signal obstruction from nearby vegetation. Similar organizations could open their datasets to telecoms companies to help create a complete picture of the hazards and opportunities to network expansion. By integrating external data with internal network information, new market entrants could see opportunities for efficient deployment of broadband into new geographies and accelerate the process of ensuring nationwide coverage.
A flow of telecoms data between departments enables open, decentralized information sharing. Open-source, geospatial data supports smaller and larger telecoms players to maximize the reach of high-speed broadband, addressing the growing digital divide of nationwide connectivity.
The ‘dark fiber’ opportunity
Accurate, real-time geospatial data can also help organizations spot opportunities to lease out bandwidth. Many organizations are sitting on goldmines of unused, ‘dark fiber’ network capacity that could be sold to companies or leased to nearby communities to increase coverage. We helped a large university in the western US audit and update their network asset records and uncovered over 200 underutilized ‘dark’ broadband fibers, helping streamline their network and identify extra capacity. They also used advanced geospatial information systems to predict future capacity and find the most efficient pathways to coverage across their campus.
The same data could be shared with telecoms operators or other organizations to help plot the most effective paths to extend coverage using existing capacity. North America already leads the world in the ‘dark fiber’ networks market and has an opportunity to leverage this to accelerate the nationwide 5G coverage without new infrastructure spending. Discovering unused extra broadband capacity in this way helps to increase efficiency for large and small operators alike by allowing them to extract maximum coverage from minimal resources and grow revenue potential in the process.
Other companies are digitalizing and decentralizing their network data and making it accessible to everyone from field technicians to call-centre staff. These companies are moving away from traditional centralized GIS, siloed spreadsheets, proprietary apps, or paper maps towards ‘open’ network data that can be accessed from smartphones and tablets or exported through open APIs. This means that data on current networks can be easily merged with other datasets to spot opportunities to maximize coverage with minimal resources and risk.
Achieving nationwide 5G coverage and the digital transformation of the economy will require a parallel digital transformation of telecoms, fiber and 5G operators. Companies will need to embrace an open, transparent approach to capturing and sharing data while creating the ability to capture and integrate data from across all departments and external sources to develop a holistic picture of the risks and rewards across every region. This new digital transformation will demand the democratization and decentralization of all organizational data so that every operator can see the clearest and quickest route to reaching under-served communities across the country.
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