Ordnance Survey Helps UK Broadband Networks with Data on Flats

The Ordnance Survey (OS), which creates and maintains detailed location (map) information for Great Britain, claims to have launched a “game-changing advantage” for alternative broadband networks (Altnet) that can help them to roll-out full fibre lines by “eradicating time-draining obstacles“, such as missing data for multi-dwelling units (big residential buildings).

According to OS, Altnets can sometimes run into trouble, when confronted with high rise flats and mixed-use residential and commercial buildings in Britain. For example, gaps in data around the classification and characteristics of these types of buildings sometimes “prevents the smooth running of operational rollouts, or targeted sales and marketing strategies from reaching the different occupiers inside.”

In addition, other problems, such as “not knowing how much cable or pipework is required for a job, not knowing what tools need to be on-site, or not knowing what type of staffing expertise will be needed to work on a specific type of building” can all mount up. Even before the work can start, not having a clear idea of who owns the piece of land around a building that must be accessed or dug up can create problems.

Suffice to say that OS has been working on a solution to help network operators get good and correct data on these sites, which can reduce the chances of related deployments becoming time-consuming and resource heavy. The solution is a concept called Complex Building Intelligence (CBI), which was first previewed at last year’s Connected Britain event.

Complex Building Intelligence

The analytics pulls data from multiple sources into one new single layer, combining OS’s addressing, topographic and building height data with HM Land Registry and Royal Mail PAF data.

Attributes for complex buildings are all available in one place, including: building geometry (e.g. size and shape), building height, functional use of buildings (e.g. retail or education), key infrastructure sites (e.g. hospitals), Unique Property Reference Numbers and tenure data for England and Wales (e.g. registered owner or leaseholders).

The full analytics service contains 7.2 million addresses shown within 1.2m buildings around Britain.

The solution incorporates HMLR Title Number data and information about land ownership. For altnets, this streamlines the wayleave consent process when installing telecoms equipment on private land. It also means altnets are no longer forced to licence HMLR and OS data separately when seeking correct land ownership data for sites.

Naturally, anything that enables better planning, cost efficiencies and thus faster deployments of new broadband infrastructure can only be a good thing when it comes to the complex task of dealing with MDUs.

Richard Crump, OS’s Strategic Product Manager, said:

“We have observed the challenges surrounding complex building that telecoms providers face, for some time. Having listened and had conversations about these difficulties with many voices in the industry, OS has gone away and developed a solution for its partners that provides a single source of truth in one place.

Complex Building Intelligence basically removes all the complexity of data management – whether that’s collating the data or querying it. It’s a simple, easy-to-use analytics service, kept up to date by experts, that’s ready to load into anyone’s network planning or GIS software.”

Credits to Thinkbroadband for spotting this one.