After three action-packed days at the FTTH Conference 2026 at ExCel London, our team head home with a lot of inspiration and plenty of notes.
When the entire European fiber industry gathers under one roof, it is incredibly easy to get lost in a sea of tech jargon and abstract concepts. But at Booth #B44, the conversations we had with you were refreshingly grounded. You aren’t looking for buzzwords. You are looking for ways to stop fragmented data, unexpected field delays, and rigid planning from slowing down your network rollouts.
We loved hearing directly from operators, integrators, and industry leaders because understanding your on-the-ground reality is exactly what keeps our solutions practical.
Here is a look at the most common hurdles we discussed last week, and more importantly, how we can bridge the gap between those daily frustrations and long-term operational excellence.
The Struggle: The Disconnect Between the Field and the Back Office
One of the most frequent pain points we heard on the exhibition floor was field workforce friction. Coordinating technicians feels like a logistical nightmare when schedules change by the minute. Even worse, sending teams out with paper notes or clunky apps means critical updates take days to reach the back office. Your network records end up constantly one step behind reality.
Our solution: Real-Time Sync and Instant Accuracy
Operational excellence happens when your field teams and your core systems speak the exact same language in real time. We demonstrated how smart Field Service Management (like GeoTask) automates task assignments based on actual location and technician skills, cutting operational delays. Paired with customized mobile apps (iMDC) that allow teams to capture and verify data on the spot, the back office gets an instant, accurate picture of the network. No more translation errors; no more lost paperwork.
The Struggle: Designing Networks at the Speed of Demand
The pressure is always on to expand footprints and connect more homes, but manual network planning is painfully slow and rigid. Comparing different design scenarios at scale takes too much time, and the industry is facing a severe shortage of experienced designers. Because of this bottleneck, teams are overwhelmed, and time-to-market suffers.
Our solution: Automated Planning in Seconds
You need to move fast without sacrificing precision. We showed attendees how tools like the Fiber Design Engine (FDE) can flip the script on network planning. By utilizing automation, operators can generate cost-optimized High-Level Designs (complete with a Bill of Materials) in a matter of seconds. Instead of getting bogged down in manual drawing, your team can instantly test multiple “what-if” scenarios, reducing construction costs and freeing up your designers to focus their expertise where it actually matters.
The Struggle: Managing the “Data Chaos”
As networks grow, information inevitably gets trapped in silos. Without a clear, unified view of your infrastructure, maintenance becomes entirely reactive. Fixing networks only after they break causes unexpected downtime, frustrated customers, and bloated repair budgets.
Our solution: Predictive Digital Twins
You cannot manage what you cannot see. The path forward is building a single source of truth using Smallworld-based Network Inventory and predictive digital twins via platforms like GlobIQ. By modeling your infrastructure with absolute precision, you transition from reactive scrambling to proactive control. You can spot vulnerabilities, plan maintenance intelligently, and prevent failures long before a customer ever notices an outage.
Highlight: From Data to Action Without the Fluff
These themes were perfectly captured in the workshop we co-hosted on day one: “From Data to Action: Accelerating Operational Excellence with Computer Vision and Automated Intelligence”.
Our CTO, Radek Borecki, alongside Salvador Peya and Colin Waterworth from GE Vernova, and Michel Ayoun from Setics, broke down exactly how AI fits into the real world of telecom. Instead of talking about AI as a theoretical concept, they showed how to use computer vision to build self-correcting inventories and ensure field maintenance is done right on the very first try. It was a deep dive into how automated intelligence acts as a practical tool for clearing everyday roadblocks.
Let’s Keep the Conversation Going!
For the entire Globema crew—Bartosz, Radek, Adam, Dawda, Józef, and Krzysztof—the absolute best part of the FTTH Conference was the direct feedback we received from the telecom community.
Building a future-proof network requires more than just laying cables. It requires the right strategy, the right systems, and ongoing collaboration.
A huge thank you to everyone who stopped by the booth, joined the workshop, and shared their challenges with us in London. The exhibition may be over, but the work of building smarter, faster networks is a year-round job.
We’re always here to bounce ideas around and explore how we can tackle your toughest telecom challenges together.
