When traditional network delivery is too restrictive

Bandwidth intensive industry sectors such as media, finance, e-commerce and service provision are leading the move to fibre networks. With a single fibre pair capable of carrying 8 terabits of data per second, more and more organisations are looking to move their network infrastructure to a fibre based network. Geo itself increased its customer base by a third last year.

Designing, deploying and managing a dark fibre network – no easy feat

Network and infrastructure managers are often juggling the need to deliver strategic objectives with optimum infrastructure performance. Migrating from an ethernet or MPLS network or designing and installing a new backbone is no simple feat. Whilst we have customers with in house experts in fibre network design, we are approached by an increasing number of organisations with differing profiles.

Different customers with differing needs

The companies Geo is working with come in all shades of grey and are rarely looking for a black and white solution. Each industry sector, each organisation and any given infrastructure team has specific requirements. Typical variances:

No previous inhouse experience with dark fibre networks
Sector has specific geographical or regulatory requirements (online, broadcast, finance, carrier)
Experience with fibre but looking for external resource to manage network in order to focus on core business
Large scale, high value network migration/deployment requiring complex consultation phase: requirements profiling, scenario planning, risk mitigation, commercial modelling and design
Business strategy/factors requiring phased transfer of network management

Many telecoms organisations still underpin their design, delivery and commercial models with restrictions based on their business requirements rather than the organisations deploying their fibre infrastructure.

Geo’s Transitional Services

Our customers’ network topologies are varied in form and their business needs at differing stages, a one size fits all approach wouldn’t work for our customers nor us. We’ve mirrored our service offering to ensure all of our customers receive a solution that works for them, a network built for them and a service that reassures them.

Our transitional services include dark fibre (DF); where the customer controls and manages their network
Design build and operate (DBO); where the customer has full control but does not have the capability to manage a dedicated network
Design, build and transfer (DBT); where the customer acquires post implementation capability
And anywhere inbetween – our services are fluid and underpinned on the above but tailored to each organisation

What about the detail?

Our transitional services are scoped from inital market sector analysis through to post project handover and reporting. Services include but are not limited to:

Market, data and needs analysis
Scenario planning and modelling based on variety of demand profiles and solution types
Requirements capture and commerical modelling
Management of suppliers and third parties with an equipment agnostic approach
Dedicated Geo Project Office resources to ensure timely delivery and service
Controlled handover procedures and reversal arrangements

Managing the period of change which comes with network expansion, ensuring resource is available and not compromising on performance is essential to our customers and this is reflected in our services. Our teams are fully ISO9001 accredited and are Prince 2 practitioners.