21712 - SCTE Broadband Nov2022 COMPLETE v1

29 Vol. 44 No. 4 - November 2022 Issue from the industry Because of who we are, and because the projects are interesting and innovative - and we are all curious engineers at heart - and if you make an engineer curious then you have their full attention! Melissa Cogavin caught up with IQgeo’s Kelly Fournier, GE’s Colin Waterworth, Upp’s Alex Marshall and Real World Systems’ Gillian Kendrick to learn more about how they’re working together. I am struck by the level of cooperation across all your companies, the hand-in-glove nature of what you do, it is very impressive. How much of this was accidental and based on existing relationships? Or has this been something that you have strategically set out to achieve? Kelly: The GE/IQgeo collaboration started around 2015 and has only grown since then. I don’t want to speak for Alex, but it seems like our story resonated with Upp. I think the success of the collaboration between the three companies has a lot to do with our open communication, and our commitment for Upp to succeed in their FTTH goals. This is not just a client/ vendor relationship. It’s a collaboration and a partnership! Colin: GE Digital has been working with Alex and the team since the first spark of the company came about and have supported him through the business case definition and start of the company. GE Digital has also had a longstanding relationship with IQgeo and has developed an end-to-end integrated solution that was to form the baseline for the Upp OSS. Alex: At Upp we tried to do something reasonably innovative with the tech partners we have, and the way that affects the way we staff our running function, which is quite interesting as a result. It’s not the normal way of doing planning and consequently we are keen to elaborate to make it work. Obviously Gillian Kendrick from Real World Solutions has been integral to the success of this partnership, I can’t overstate that. She makes it all work. Because of who we are, and because the projects are interesting and innovative - and we are all curious engineers at heart - and if you make an engineer curious then you have their full attention! We are always keen to see how far we can make this go, and we have other exciting ideas in the pipeline. Gillian: We are the people that come in and get the system working. We have to be able to understand the tech that IQgeo have, and everyone else’s capability too. It was strategic with GE and IQgeo. We’ve invested in understanding where they are strong and where something else is needed. We work with telecoms companies to understand where their businesses work. Upp is a start-up and they need this functionality today, but in 6 months’ time they’ll need something else, so we also need to pre-empt those developments in a very agile way. Cooperation and good communication is essential. Is this model being emulated beyond the UK? I am uncertain since Colin, you showed me your demo which appears to be in the US. Gillian: Yes, although Upp is a different kind of company from others. There’s quite a difference between established companies and start-ups, and territories differ too. But yes, we are working in Denmark, Japan, we work with Deutsche Telecom in Germany and we are present in the US too. Kelly: Indeed! GE and IQgeo have had many common clients on different continents. That said, Upp has been quite innovative in their approach, leveraging our solutions in the context of the resource challenges faced in the UK. Colin: Yes the model is global – Fibre to the Home (FTTH) roll outs are happening everywhere with a mix of government and private investment helping drive to the goal of 100% broadband coverage for all. Such integrated solutions like GE Digital’s Physical Network Inventory (PNI) and IQgeo’s fibre designer that automate and accelerate the plan/design process are an ask for many of our customers. The integrated solution can be used to support the strategic analysis process to define ‘where to go’ and then with a deepened level of analysis, layout the networks for these geographical areas. Something key here is our ability to model a ‘Digital Twin’ – this is the modelling of the network in the Inventory management system – so you have a representation of the assets in the field in GE Digitals Physical Network Inventory (PNI). One thing we get from a GE Digital/IQgeo solution is a consistent/standards-based entry of data – as data quality is key not only when you are building the network – but when it comes to operating your network.