Network Management Digitization & Telecom Consolidations

The Polish telecom market is characterized by a multitude of small and medium-sized operators. Over time, these companies often merge or are acquired by larger entities as part of a natural industry evolution. But how do rapid technological advancements and the growing use of artificial intelligence influence these consolidations and mergers? Read on as Radek Borecki, Globema’s CTO, shares his insights.

What technical aspects would you highlight as the most important in the consolidation process?

Radek Borecki: It’s important to start by recognizing that telecom operator consolidations are driven by business decisions, which in turn have technical and organizational consequences. During the consolidation process, companies with varying operational approaches, management styles, and system maturity come together. These differences significantly influence how smoothly the integration proceeds.

From a technical perspective, network integration is a key challenge. This often involves merging databases and systems used to manage network data. Telecom operators store network information in a variety of formats. They range from paper documents and basic digital files to advanced professional inventory systems. The ongoing digitization of these repositories and the adoption of tools that simplify network management play a crucial role in streamlining the technical side of such consolidations.

At Globema, we’ve been providing professional network inventory systems for telecommunications for over 25 years. Over that time, we’ve supported nearly every major integration of telecom systems in Poland.

The increasing digitization of network data has led smaller operators to invest in professional inventory systems and focus on maintaining high-quality data. This not only enhances their operational efficiency but also boosts their market value. A well-documented and inventoried network provides buyers with transparency and reduces their business risks. Simply put, it ensures they aren’t buying a “pig in a poke.” For sellers, this transparency means they can negotiate better prices, while also reducing the costs associated with the transaction itself.

What data quality challenges do operators face during consolidation, and how can technology help address these? More broadly, how do technological advancements influence telecom company consolidations?

Radek Borecki: It might sound surprising, but many operators still store their network data on paper. This creates significant accessibility challenges. Retrieving the data often requires physically locating the right telecom cabinet and digging through paper files. Before this data can be integrated into the buyer’s existing inventory system, it must first be digitized.

When digitization is done manually, it’s not only time-consuming but also prone to errors like misspellings, incorrect data entries, or inconsistent naming conventions. While such data can technically be migrated into a network inventory system, its quality won’t improve during the process.

Even when digital data is available, there’s another hurdle: the vast variety of digital formats. For instance, DWG/DXF files are popular in the industry, but they come with almost endless possibilities for naming layers, objects, and network elements. Standardizing this data is a meticulous process that must be completed before migration to ensure accuracy.

One of the most common issues, regardless of format, is data timeliness. Even operators using advanced inventory systems face challenges. There are two typical scenarios. First, when data about network changes isn’t fully captured and updated in the system, leading to gaps. Second, when updates rely on manual data entry, the process is slow, and operational data quickly becomes outdated. Over time, this leads to resource degradation within the system—once data is no longer reliable, operators lose the motivation to keep it updated.

Can you share any specific examples, methods, or tools that address these challenges?

Radek Borecki: Globema offers a comprehensive range of solutions and services designed to tackle the challenges we’ve discussed. We support operators in maintaining high-quality network data and preparing it for consolidation into a unified inventory system. This involves acquiring data from various sources—paper documents, diverse digital formats, and field data—and resolving errors, converting, and migrating the information. Many of our tools leverage artificial intelligence to automate these processes, making them faster and more efficient.

Over the years, our team has developed an extensive set of validators, converters, and scripts that automatically improve data quality. These tools enable seamless integration of telecom network data. With experience gained from more than 100 data cleaning, conversion, and migration projects across countless formats and databases, our experts approach each task equipped with proven solutions.

For several years now, we’ve also been deploying AI-based technologies, including machine learning, to extract and interpret data from unstructured sources. Our tools can analyze paper documents, read data embedded in network schematics, and recognize details about infrastructure elements—whether in telecom cabinets or out in the field.

As I mentioned earlier, maintaining up-to-date data is just as critical as collecting it. Our solutions enable seamless sharing of current network information with field technicians while ensuring that updates are promptly and automatically reflected in the inventory system.

All of our tools are designed to rapidly digitize network data and maintain its quality. This ensures inventory systems function efficiently and support various business processes. Ultimately, these solutions help operators complete mergers and consolidations faster and more effectively.

Explore Our Solutions for Telecoms:

Network inventory – plan your network, maintain infrastructure, and activate new services. Manage your network inventory more easily.
Network Digital Twin – collect and maintain network inventory data with GlobIQ Platform.
Network maintenance & customer service – improve the efficiency of your field network operations with GeoTask, a Field Service Management solution.
Data integration – integrate and transform your data, adjusting them to your needs with FME Platform.
Automated document categorization and extracting data – extract data from documentation with the support of AI algorithms from iDoc.
Automated network designing – plan and design hybrid fiber-coax (HFC) and fiber-to-the-customer (FTTx) networks using NetVersant Designer.
Quick access to essential information about investment progress – monitor your telecom investment progress in one place with FTTH Investment Tracker.
Network design and investment cost estimation – automatically generate High-Level Designs and estimate telecom investment costs with FTTH Investment Planner.