Access Planning - Click to Enlarge

When providing connectivity to customers, optimal planning and design of the access network is necessary to ensure timely service delivery and great customer experience. Whether you are a rolling out FttX, or delivering services over existing HFC or copper infrastructure, it is essential that customer connections are made quickly and efficiently to minimise time-to-profit.

Aria’s abstracted, flexible network model and artificial intelligence-based analytics can be applied to a range of access planning problems.  Support for point-to-point and point-to-multi-point infrastructure and services allows for planning of technologies such as DSL, PON, DOCSIS and FttX.

Access Network Planning

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Networks, such as GPON and DSL, must be designed to reach customers while minimising cost and the impact of distance on signal quality. As an integrated solution Aria is able to model duct routes, customer locations and distribution points based on data from GIS. Optimal placement of fibres, splitters and distribution points is determined by considering physical constraints, cost and service requirements such as:

• The impact on signal quality due to the cable length to reach distribution points
• Locations of splitters and their impact on signal quality
• The available capacity to lay new cables in a duct
• The maximum homes served per distribution point or cable

Supporting Access at the Edge

The access network starts at the edge. Maximising efficient use of assets on the core network’s edge can reduce the cost to supply a service, accelerate time-to-profit, and also balance the load on the core network.

Aria supplies accurate forecasts for the capacity utilisation of access equipment such as MSANs, DSLAMs and line terminals. Whether the requirement is to check the feasibility of delivering a large corporate customer’s communications infrastructure, or to analyse the readiness of the network for the next twelve months of residential service take-up, Aria can quickly determine where upgrades will be needed, and how costs can be minimised.

By applying ‘what-if’ scenarios for different combinations of vendors and technologies, service provides can make strategic decisions about the future architecture of their edge equipment to support long-term forecasts for access services.

You can find out more about how service providers are using intelligent planning for access networks here.