Welcome to Bitesize Fiber, the podcast where we explore the real world challenges and smart solutions shaping the future of fiber and telecom, one bite at a time.
Designing a fiber network can take hours or just minutes. In episode four of Bitesize Fiber - Planning & design series, Stephen Baker and Jeroen Vanhaverbeke join host Elli Puls to compare manual design methods with automated tools like Comsof Fiber. They explore how automation speeds up planning, ensures consistency, and can even cut build costs by 10%, while highlighting where human expertise still plays a vital role. If you're wondering when to trust the machine and when to lean on your team, this episode is for you.
Ellie Puls:
Welcome back to Bitesize Fiber, the podcast where we break down the biggest challenges in fiber and telecom, one bite at a time. I'm your host, Ellie Puls.
In today's episode, we're wrapping up our Planning and Design series by tackling a hot topic. Manual versus automated design workflows and fiber planning. Joining me again are Stephen Baker and Jeroen Vanhaverbeke, who have both spent years helping operators use automation to accelerate and improve their fiber rollouts. We dig into what really happens when you compare traditional manual designs with automated tools like Comsof Fiber that can churn out consistent, optimized designs in minutes.
We'll explore real world examples of how automation can cut design times from hours to minutes, ensure consistency, and even save 10% on build costs, while also acknowledging where manual adjustments still matter for local expertise and field validation. If you're wondering when to trust the machine and when to lean on your team, this episode is for you. Let's get into it.
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| Ellie Puls, Product Manager | Stephen Baker, Customer Success Manager | Jeroen Vanhaverbeke, Product Manager |
Ellie Puls:
So, Stephen, based on your experience designing nearly a million miles, what would you say is the number one mistake you see in network planning that operators should avoid?
Stephen Baker:
The biggest is probably not ensuring that data is up to date before they start. If you're not preparing the data before you start, then prepare to fail.
Jeroen Vanhaverbeke:
We've spoken about the fact that quality is essential to avoid redesigns and making sure that you have the right design first. But I think automation is also a very important point there, because with the right GIS data, even if you need to connect everything manually that really throws a spanner in the wheels if you have the right automation system, like Comsof Fiber for example, to churn out new designs at the click of a button.
That's really a way that you can get to a very fast first version of the design and then iterate on it with field surveys, partners or whoever needs to have eyes on that. But the fact that in any design workflow, you need to have automation as soon as possible and as much as possible, that's something that I definitely recommend in increasing the speed of rollout.
Ellie Puls:
That's interesting. And Jeroen across your career, have you had to do some of these processes manually? And now how has that changed with having these more automated tools?
Jeroen Vanhaverbek:
There was definitely one case where we wanted to validate the results of a Comsof Fiber calculation, and we were talking to a very friendly client who actually made sure that we had three network planners on a single day available, and each of these made a network design for a certain area and then Comsof Fiber did the same thing. So we had four designs that were created.
The Comsof Fiber automation was quickest because that was a couple of minutes of work. I think the planners took about 2 to 3 hours to come to a network design, and there was quite a big variation in the results that these three guys made. So, that was the first observation. If you ask three different manual planners to make a design, they will roughly follow the same guidelines, but definitely not the exact same choices every time. Whereas if you have a software solution, there are algorithms built in there that will make the decision the same way every single time, so your network results will be more uniform. That was one interesting observation.
Another one was that the actual cost of the resulting network there was about 10% variation between the different designs. So between the most expensive one and the cheapest one, and the cheapest one was created by the Comsof Fiber solution, because that's an automation tool that will minimize the total cost involved in your network. So, depending on the planner we chose on that day, we could save 10% or lose 10% of the investment for that small area.
Ellie Puls:
That's huge. Yeah. And then thinking about all the time saved across a year, if that was done in a day and saved, you know, eight hours or so. Very cool.
Stay tuned for the next series of Bitesize Fiber. Meanwhile, catch up on the previous Bitesize Fiber series Network construction.
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