LEADERS' OUTLOOK
Better Data for Better Decisions BY GEERT DE COENSEL
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Founder & CEO, Merkator
n the past few years, the pace of innovation has accelerated. However, there are several challenges that need to be addressed related to continuous quality monitoring of infrastructure data. For instance, in the telecom and utilities markets that we serve, we have seen a growing pain of degrading data quality in the existing static inventory solutions. Bad data leads to bad decisions. It also results in underinvestment in NextGen inventory systems. This is where Digital Twin technology can be of immense help.
ANNUAL EDITION / JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2022
Digital Twins are not new — probing technology has been around for more than a decade. These digital models can be of great advantage, because in our world they provide much more than a good 3D-view of infrastructure. What we want to do is to be able to truly ‘read’ the network status in real time (such as fiberpaths), using network probing technology directly fetched from active network devices. By doing so, active devices and passive devices (infrastructure) fuse into one environment. In this way, documentation errors are detected automatically, leading to much better data quality, which eventually leads to better operational decisions.
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Today, we find Digital Twins in all industries. The Digital Twin technology is essentially an easier form of abstraction to explain the challenge of accurate digital data in all representation forms, which needs to be as current as possible. A gap of months between the data being collected from the field and then being updated in the digital inventory system is no longer viable or, for that matter, acceptable. Ultimately, we should come to a point where the network inventory system is warned about a data anomaly within seconds so corrective measures can be taken.
A gap of months between data being collected from the field and then being pushed into the digital inventory system is no longer viable or, for that matter, acceptable. Gaining from Metaverse
Recently there has been a lot of hype surrounding Metaverse. I think basically Metaverse is nothing more than a huge marketing initiative of one of the biggest social media players, in order to get more control and insights about consumers worldwide. Geospatial data, 2D and especially 3D, play a key role in this ecosystem. The concept of Metaverse turns our world into one big Digital Twin in the end. In my view, the question that we have to ask ourselves is: Do we really want that as a global community? I am personally not sure, but this is not a technical discussion.
Demonstrating capabilities
Today, Merkator is already an essential part of the primary process of our key customers. This is something we would like to extend to the international stage. When we demonstrate our capabilities, people get excited. We do this in a smart way by using the world’s best GIS capabilities from vendors such as Esri. As far as working with the local government is concerned, we currently serve more than 150 Smart Cities. So, innovation tracks like this motivate us to step up and aim for success, not just locally but also in the international markets.
