Virgin Media implements GIS to expand fiber-based services

The challenge

Serving nearly 13 million customers, Virgin Media is the U.K.’s leading ultrafast broadband provider, offering TV, broadband, phone and mobile services. As a result of historical growth through acquisition, Virgin Media was left with disparate legacy systems and disconnected databases across its holdings. Many of these legacy systems contained outdated, incomplete or non-existent network information.

To maintain its leading market share and expand its fiber-based services, Virgin Media needed to create a unified geospatial inventory system that would consolidate its remaining disparate legacy systems, streamline its planning processes, resolve its network problems more efficiently and optimize its nationwide communication networks.

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The solution

Building upon the success of previous GIS and data consolidation projects, Virgin Media selected Hexagon's Safety, Infrastructure & Geospatial division to create an integrated, spatially based physical inventory system of its communications network.

Powered by Hexagon's feature-rich GIS platform designed to meet the resource management needs of utilities and communications providers, Virgin Media has migrated away from obsolete platforms, cleansed and integrated inventory data from local records and implemented change processes for better inventory upkeep and utilization. As a result, Virgin Media has streamlined its network planning processes, digitized all fiber records, modernized its network data holdings and supports daily operations more efficiently.

Virgin Media also leveraged analytics from the solution data to enhance its decision-making processes, developing analytical reports for sales agents and web-based services for external parties. With Virgin Media planning to extend the reach of its network by 4 million premises by the end of the decade, Hexagon technology will help scale up planning and design while keeping network and asset inventory up to date.