You want to believe: you know your fiber’s out there…somewhere…but exactly what it’s all doing and where it all is…that’s the mystery! If you’re dealing with a fiber mystery, this blog’s for you!

Question: does any of the below sound familiar to you….?

When you need to figure out where something goes to in your fiber / outside plant, or know what’s needed to repair something before you head out into the field, are you stuck in the dark? Have you had to physically walk the entire fiber path just to learn where it ends….had to head out into the field an hour away from the office…only to figure out, when you get there, that you don’t have what you need to fix an issue?

If any of that rang a bell (and we don’t mean Art Bell, ahem), keep reading.

The bad news: lots of fiber and outside plants today might as well be ‘Area 51’ to the people who work on them. The good news is that it’s not your team’s fault. The issue is that, until recently, there just haven’t been any great options for fiber plant documentation. There’s been software that is, in theory, “good” — but it’s way too complicated for what you need to do and far too expensive. Then there’s software that’s affordable, but it’s just not meant for what you need to do. There’s software that’s inexpensive or free (spreadsheets, and Google Earth, anyone?) but incredibly lacking — it leads to a lot more work than is necessary and it’s hard (or downright impossible) to keep updated.

Now, for some great news: software specifically targeting the headaches that fiber and outside plant managers face just hasn’t existed…until recently! Full disclosure: we make netTerrain OSP — so maybe we’re a little biased — but we make software that is specifically designed to help fiber teams like you solve your fiber headaches, get capacity right, and simplify your circuit management and design.

netTerrain OSP gives you a bird’s eye to a worm’s eye view of your fiber plant

Fiber mapping software (like netTerrain OSP) makes understanding your fiber simple for you and your team:

Fiber Mapping Software Helps You See Everything

It’s easy to visualize your entire fiber plant with our integration with OpenStreetMaps GIS-enabled maps (you can also use your own map and layout drawings). You get 6-decimal precision for exact latitude and longitude positioning, 19 zoomable levels (drill down from the world view down to each fiber strand), three map layers (standard, transport, and light layer), and the ability to measure the distances between the objects on your maps, the lengths of your connections, and more. Need to connect to your ArcGIS online or Google Earth maps? We have you covered too.

Easily bring in your Google Earth Maps in netTerrain OSP

Fiber Mapping Software Lets You Search for Anything

Searching across your entire OSP/fiber network, in seconds, is easy with netTerrain. You can precisely place, view, and then search for any of your outside plant elements, for example: manholes, conduits, towers, fiber trunks, buffers, splices, splitters and any custom object you’d like. You can search for any data field in netTerrain. Plus, everything is viewable in a clean, hierarchical manner that makes it easy to focus on specific elements. You can also build your own query reports and save the reports too.

Hierarchical views are easy in netTerrain OSP

Fiber Mapping Software Helps You Solve Inside Plant Headaches

Got inside plant headaches, too? With netTerrain OSP, for example, you also get the ability to manage what’s inside of your plant! You can manage your data center and telecom racks, your data center room, office floor plans, and capacity — with simple clicks. You can even monitor power and temperature inside of your data center, manage your assets, and untangle your cabling spaghetti.

Visualize your inside plant in netTerrain OSP

With fiber documentation/OSP software like netTerrain, there’s no more mystery of where your fiber plant equipment and cabling are located! Are you ready to step up and migrate from your spreadsheets, Visio, and Google Earth diagrams? Is your main fiber guy retiring soon and taking all of his knowledge with him? Perhaps it’s time to do a knowledge transfer and have one place for all of your fiber documentation? If so, give netTerrain OSP a try. Click here to take the first step and get a 100% free trial.

About Fred Koh

As a seasoned sales executive, Fred Koh serves as Director of Sales and is responsible for Graphical Networks sales and channel partner program, marketing strategy, and operations.