European Telco Reaps the Benefits of ikeGPS Remote Measurement and 3D
Posted on Thu, Jul 19, 2012
Bite Group is one of the largest telecommunications companies in the Baltic Countries, and a Vodafone partner serving both Lithuania and Latvia, with over 1.3m subscribers and a considerable market share. Bite Lithuania operate a network of assets including 1000 antenna sites and 250 towers. Bite Latvia have 550 antenna sites and 200 towers. A separate subsidiary exists in Teletower (www.teletower.lt) to which all these assets where transferred in 2009. Dalius Radis, Head of Network Development at Bite Group, and Acting CEO of Teletower in Lithuania, has been speaking to us about how field teams are gaining massive efficiencies and delivering business-critical information data using ikeGPS.
According to Mr. Radis, "for many years our network planners and site acquisition engineers captured positional and height data in the field using paper/digital maps, handheld GPS, digital cameras and laser range finders to measure asset heights. All this data then needed collating, reconciling and validating back in the office to provide meaningful business information via GIS analysis. Site acquisition engineers need to evaluate several new site locations in area which meant visiting several locations individually, recording huge amounts of data, which could often result in errors and omissions and return site visits. When searching for new mobile GIS technology, we stumbled upon ikeGPS, which claimed to be an 'all in one' mobile GIS system integrating DGPS, camera, mapping software and laser rangefinder for remote 3D measurement."
Dalius continued, "on evaluating the market we determined ikeGPS to have the most comprehensive technical capability available. In practice we have seen massive time savings, increased field and back-office efficiency, and no errors/omissions due to data translation – the process is so straightforward. You simply take ikeGPS into the field, locate potential sites, and record all required data from one position! All this is achieved within 2-3 minutes compared to 30 minutes per site previously, a 10-fold time saving. Then back to the office to drag-and-drop to Google Earth/ESRI GIS/Network planning/Network Inventory tools, reducing data reconciliation times by an even greater margin!”
“We also use ikeGPS for site audit and asset inventory. Teletower have a pricing model established based on quantity and relative heights of equipment placed on a tower; the higher the equipment - the higher the lease costs. It is critical that we control and audit this on a regular basis to manage leases and revenue. With ikeGPS the process is streamlined and reliable, ensuring our leasing practices are verifiable and accurate. This also maintains an efficient revenue stream for Teletower going forward.”
In summary, Mr. Radis said, “Bite and Teletower are currently rolling out 3G on 900MHz and the next generation 4G LTE network network infrastructure and will be expanding our use of ikeGPS and ikeSolutions to meet the requirements of our expanding network of assets and telco partners.”
Are you a telecommunications asset owner or service provider, needing to capture accurate and efficient asset data for site acquisition, network planning and business-critical decision making? ikeGPS may be the solution you are looking for. For further information please contact your regional sales representative.