The following transcript has been edited for time and readability. Listen to the entire discussion here on The Broadband Bunch.
Craig Corbin:
Hello everyone. And welcome to another edition of the Broadband Bunch. Along with my colleague, Brad Hine, I’m Craig Corbin. Thanks so much for joining us.
Craig Corbin:
Founded back in 1969 as the Environmental Systems Research Institute focused on land use consulting and headquartered in Redlands, California, Esri is the world’s leading mapping technology company and is an international supplier of geographic information system software, web GIS, and geo database management applications. Esri’s ArcGIS is the world’s most powerful mapping and spatial analytics software, delivering location intelligence to meet the digital transformation needs for organizations of all sizes.
Craig Corbin:
Our guest today serves as a partner manager with Esri, and it is a pleasure to welcome Jason Hart to the Broadband Bunch.
GIS Mapping at 13-Years Old
Craig Corbin:
It’s always intriguing when we talk about a geographic information system software and what it can do, the powerful nature of that. I’m always curious about professionals, such as yourself, how did you get into, what was the spark that got you into GIS?
Jason Hart:
Whenever I was 13 years old, I was with a group of people in West Virginia that were going around the mountains looking for caves. We were digging underneath a rock outcropping one day, and we saw that a whole bunch of dirt was just falling straight down into this hole. It kind of looked like something out of a scary movie to where the earth was just going down, and we didn’t know how far the hole would actually go.
Jason Hart:
Well, whenever we opened it up, we found out that the hole was a lot more tall than it was wide, so we were at the top of a canyon. They looked around the group and they saw this skinny 13-year-old kid and then said, “Hey, you can fit down there.” They pointed right at me, and then I knew that I was on deck there. What they did is that they handed me some survey equipment and then gave me, I don’t know, about a 10-minute introduction on how to operate it. They tied a rope around my waist and then dropped me down the hole. I got down there and it just such an interesting experience to be somewhere where no one else has ever set foot before.
Jason Hart:
What I was really doing down at the bottom of that hole was I was collecting data. I was collecting survey shots, setting up survey points and then sketching out the outer walls of this cave. It didn’t really mean a lot to me at the time, but what we did is that, whenever they pulled me out of the hole, a couple of days after that we took that data and we entered it into a computer. They’re in front of my eyes was a rendering of the cave that only I have seen. And it was just such an amazing experience to be able to collect numbers and then transform that into a medium where you can actually see it and interact with it. And that was the point in time where I knew that GIS was it and I was hooked from that point on.
Brad Hine:
Dropped down a hole for a length of time to pull out GIS data. That’s fabulous. Jason, I’m curious, and I know our audience is curious also, so from that point, what did you do with that interest? Clearly, you already had a basis and a passion for GIS at that point. You could see what others couldn’t, so to speak.
Jason Hart:
I didn’t really know what to do with it, but whenever I was applying for college, I saw that geography was a major and it was an option there. I immediately checked that box, not really knowing what I was doing, but I knew that geography was something that I wanted to get into.
Jason Hart:
I ended up going to college at a little school just south of Virginia Tech named Radford University, and it was really a great environment. They had a really strong GIS program there and we were situated in the Appalachian Mountains, so we had a lot of things to map and a lot of things to do there. I was doing good with that, but then I realized just before my senior year, I need to get some real life experience.
First GIS Mapping Experience
Jason Hart:
Academia could only take me so far in my GIS experience, so I went down to the electric department there in town and we started to talk about maps. And I found out that they had a lot of paper maps around, but they also were hosting a GIS for the entire town. I got my hands on that and I started really to input a lot of information on the parcel lines, the electrical lines, even the islands in the river that ran through the town. I was really inputting a lot of data again.
Jason Hart:
The difference here was, is that we actually had a program, this was back in 2005, that would publish my GIS data to the internet, which was kind of edgy back in those days. Not only was I able to visualize my data as I input it in there, but now others can interact with it. That was also just an eye opening experience that what I was doing on my desktop, there was also a way that everyone else could experience it. I really got into that and love that part of it.
Brad Hine:
You started working with those electrical maps, those electrical department maps, and what you just explained is a centralized architecture of such so you could interact with other folks.
Brad Hine:
From there being in electric, what happened next? Where did you venture next in your GIS career path?
Jason Hart:
I was there for about a year and I graduated and I realized that I probably need to look for work else elsewhere. I was actually recruited by a company based out of my hometown of Richmond, Virginia, and the company was really big on tracking and managing telecom networks in a GIS. I knew a lot about the GIS space, I had no idea what telecom even meant. I decided this sounds like a challenge, so I took it on.
Jason Hart:
Moved back to Richmond, and there for a bit, I was just doing the GIS side of that. I was drawing in lines, I was importing information. It was interesting, but I really wanted to know what were we actually doing here? A few months in, I was able to score a trip where we went on site to a telecom up in the Northeast. It was amazing experience because this was around 2006 and copper was key. We were talking about twisted pairs, load coils, repeaters, and there were veterans there that have worked with that data forever so they knew it backwards in every way around.
Feeding the Network with Fiber Optics
Jason Hart:
Then I looked over there in the corner and I saw this really interesting piece of equipment. It had lights all over it. It had orange wires, yellow wires coming out of it. I just asked, I said, “Guys, what is that?” They said, “Wow, well, that’s fiber optics. It’s a rarity and really what we use it for is that we hook up all of our central offices up to this ring and then that’s how we feed the entire network, but there’s not a lot of it. We don’t really need to track it because we know what we have.”
Jason Hart:
I thought it was interesting that these two little wires could feed all of that copper plan on the other side. I also found it interesting that there really wasn’t a need to track it. That didn’t sound right to me, right? I put that in my back pocket and then took that information home and told a couple of folks about it. What I was doing is that, at that point on, I was kind of just trolling our calls to see if anyone else was talking about fiber. I did find a company in New York State that actually was thinking about deploying fiber all the way to a house. I said, “Guys, that is it. Now we got fiber on the distribution end, GIS is going to be used here for sure, right?”
Jason Hart:
I flew up there, and it was a really interesting experience because the very first day I was, there was the very first day that they actually received their fiber optic equipment. I was there from day one. We took the equipment out of the box, and I was confused just as much as the people at the telecom at that point in time on what to do with it, right? We fired it up and we actually installed an OLT card, which is if you think about that, that’s the optical light terminal so that’s the laser light all the way back at CO that shoots all the way down to a home there.
Jason Hart:
I thought it was the best thing in the world there, that there was so much inside plant equipment. You can install this piece of equipment and it would shoot light down a line through a map, if you will, all the way to the other side. I remember after that, I went back to Radford and I was talking to a GIS group there and they were really confused on what I did. And then I said, “Guys, I’m tracking lasers on maps. How cool is that?” They loved it.
Fiber Networks and Asset Tracking
Brad Hine:
You just said the magic words for our Broadband Bunch audience. Now you’re talking about fiber connectivity and software that actually supports that whole process of keeping people connected and communities online.
Brad Hine:
Let me take a quick step back here. We know that geospatial data can track things like addresses and streets and buildings. Now you’ve gone from the electrical department and maps you worked with, now into telecoms. You’re talking about specifically fiber networks and asset tracking now for those communication service providers, is that correct?
Jason Hart:
That’s correct.
Brad Hine:
Talk a little bit more about this asset tracking, but also what else can GIS do for communication service providers globally?
Jason Hart:
That’s a really good question there. Let’s go back to the inside plant example. From the inside plant perspective, it’s always located in a building. A building has an address, we all we all know about that. We all know how that looks on a map. Usually it’s a dot, right?
Jason Hart:
Let’s take it back a little bit. Is it really just a dot? No, it’s not. That dot has walls on the outside of the building itself. Those walls have floors. Those floors have rooms. Those rooms have racks in them. Those racks have equipment. That equipment has ports in it. It goes all the way down to a virtual world.
Jason Hart:
The GIS is the perfect tool to track and manage what a network actually is because not everything is just a dot, not everything’s just aligned. There’s so much data underneath that. That’s really what a GIS can bring to network management is not only just seeing a, I’ll call it, an abbreviated view of what the network actually is from all the way up, but you can drill all the way down and then get down to the real visceral components of what makes this thing work. GIS is a perfect tool for that.
Craig Corbin:
When you were talking just a moment ago about the granular nature of how it can get into every aspect of a network, it obviously has to be exciting for you now to be a part of a team like Esri that is, well, world leader in this area. Talk about what it was like when you became part of the Esri team.
Jason Hart:
I’ve been at Esri now for a little over a month, and really it was a dream come true there. Because how I see that Esri really has positioned itself is really as a foundational tool that has built a framework for partners and providers to be able to build a solution that really fits their actual needs there. The best way I can explain it is that a day of reinventing the wheel is over. Esri has really produced a framework to where you can make connections, you can access that information from anywhere. Now as a partner, you can really specialize in what you’re great at. Because as we always say, you can’t be great at everything so you need to choose what you want to Excel at.
Real-time GIS
Jason Hart:
I would say one of the parts I’m seeing a lot of is just the integration of real-time information inside of your GIS. If you think about it like that, let’s say you have a very accurate map, you understand what connects to what, you have a really good grasp of that. Now, why don’t we layer in some real-time information like alarms? Okay, so if you did that, now you can see any point on the network that has gone into alarm mode. Okay, so that’s a great addition to your operations team.
Jason Hart:
Now, let’s say that you’ve also integrated a layer to show where all your techs are and you have information if the techs available and if the tech’s qualified. Now you have an alarm, which is obviously a lat and long a map, you know where your network is and you know where your closest available tech is that’s qualified to work on that alarm. Bam, you have an operational system right there in front of you. The GIS is not just tracking and managing the assets and then how things connect, but it’s also tracking and managing the operational flow of how a network actually works. And I’m seeing a lot of that.
Brad Hine:
In that sense, Jason, Esri is a full-blown, robust platform to do all this. Because as you’re so eloquently describing all the different objects and layers as you put it that a GIS system can be tracking, my brain is starting to race now to the industry of telecommunications, of knowing all the different types of vendors that are out there and people that feed into those specific parts of the industry. Esri does have an extensive partner program. Are you seeing partners kind of taking the ball and running with it these days in terms of technology and getting more specific with their solutions integrated to yours?
Jason Hart:
What I’m seeing a lot of is partners are really going to use, again, the core foundation technology that Esri provides to be able to really hone in on a specific part of what makes it telco work. A great example of that is whenever you’re looking at a splice case, okay. Let’s say that you have an issue and you need to send a tech to a splice case. Well, the splice case is never on your desktop. A splice case is always up on a pole or it’s always out there in access point. It’s never where your computer is.
Jason Hart:
Really what we’re seeing partners do is latch on to, I’ll say, the services-based architecture of what our GIS actually is to be able to interact with that so then they can bring that data to your phone. Because obviously as everyone already knows, the phone is everything now. Being able to really harness the power of that computer in your pocket to be able to interact with the GIS data back at the office is everything. We’re seeing partners do a lot with that and I’m very excited to see where that actually goes. Because when it comes to managing a network, that’s where you need the information. It needs to be in the hands of the people actually doing the work. And I’m sorry, most of them are not behind a desk.
GIS for Wireless
Brad Hine:
That is very true, a remote connection and being able to visualize what’s out in your telecommunications utility footprint is huge. You mentioned copper to begin with, and then we started to mention some fiber technology and elements like the OLT in beams of fiber and data being processed. How about from a wireless perspective? With the advent of 4G and LTE delivering broadband, and now with 5G coming, what can GIS do for a communication service provider on the wireless side?
Jason Hart:
That’s one of the most exciting things that that Esri does does now is, not only do they have the 2D drawing of what a traditional map is, but you also can add Z scale in there to start to render a 3D model of not only what a network is but also what surrounds it.
Jason Hart:
A great example of a demo that I saw a couple of weeks back was, we had a company that was trying to figure out what is the best 5G placement to find out the height on a pole and where I can put these 5G antennas out there. What I saw is that not only did they have a 3D rendering of where the pole was, but they also had information captured about the trees in the area, the buildings, everything. As everyone already knows, 5G cannot really penetrate very well through stationary objects there. It was just insane because not only did we have the information about the network itself, we also had the information about where that antenna was going to be placed on the pole, and then we had a line of sight analysis to see everywhere that that antenna could actually reach
LiDAR 5G Ecosystem
Jason Hart:
One of the most exciting parts was, is that we had a partner that was doing a lot of that design work on the 5G end of it. But yet, we had another partner that was actually driving around shooting LiDAR to be able to collect that data, collect it up to the cloud and then push it down to the other partner to be able to plan for the 5G. It’s like an ecosystem that kind of runs itself, right? We have partners that are collecting the information that specialize in that arena, that are able to easily upload that information for other partners to use to do what we’re all here to do, which is deliver the best service we possibly can. It was very exciting to see that.
Unserved and Underserved Rural Communities
Brad Hine:
You have situations at Esri and telecommunications and utility then where there are opportunities for multiple partners and integrators on the Esri partner program to work together.
Brad Hine:
How can GIS help deploy some of the broadband further at this point to some of the unserved and underserved communities? What is Esri’s focus in that realm?
Geospatial Data
Jason Hart:
We’re at a very interesting time now. At this point in time, we’re actually in the reverse auction phase of the RDOF fund. That’s $20.4 billion out there for connecting up rural America and GIS has a massive role role here. Basically what’s happening is the FCC has provided GIS information on census blocks that they want different service providers to actually feed a service to. That information is actually hosted in a GIS. A service provider can use that and then say, “Okay, well, I want to plan a service out to this particular location.” And now they also have a listing of every location that they have to serve within that particular block. Again, just geospatial data everywhere, all over this.
Jason Hart:
Where I see that Esri’s really come into play here is that they’re able to take that information and help a CSP do a high level design of how they’re actually going to connect up every location to be able to receive the funding for that particular block. That’s just a massively awesome way to relate geospatial objects together to be able to produce value out there. Once they have that design in there, they can log that with their, what they call the long-form applications there.
Jason Hart:
If they actually received the funding, it’s really great because then they can start to use GIS again for the construction phase, right? They can have the drawings out there on a mobile phone for people who are actually putting the fiber in the ground to understand what to do and when to do it. The other side of that coin says that those folks back at the office, they need to understand what those construction crews are actually up to. They’re able to red line and then mark that information up directly in the field and then pass it back to the office. They have complete hands-on ideas and understanding of how their network’s being built. Because we all know that if you don’t have that data back, you can’t really monetize it. You don’t really know what you have until you have those as-builts back and you can actually distribute that to your sales folks.
Location Intelligence
Jason Hart:
Another very interesting case here is if you’re a service provider that is trying to serve two different census blocks, you might have to run fiber in between the two. GIS is, again, a great tool because now we can layer in business information. Say that I want to know all of the businesses that have a telco spin above X, you can have that as a layer on your maps so then now you can actually plan where the fiber goes to get the biggest return on investment. From the rural end of it, GIS has everything to do with it, and we’re happy to see what’s happening out there with the rural space and using GIS.
Brad Hine:
Just give me a map with attribute data on it and some real-time info and I can do my work. Because it’s on everybody’s phone, it’s on everybody’s laptop. It’s truly amazing. What continues to fire you up at Esri moving forward and keep you motivated?
Jason Hart:
I would say seeing the GIS world come so far to where everyone can use it. I went to school for GIS. I’ve been in the industry for a while. I understand how this works. I understand not only how it works from the front end but the back end as well. Well, to really have GIS be a useful tool, you had to be able to distribute it out to everyone.
Jason Hart:
What gets me going is just how Esri and other partners are taking this really complex thing that is a GIS and then having the ability to distribute it, have the ability to have a certain use case here, and then have an operator of a system who doesn’t have to go to school to be able to use it and gain value out of it. I’m seeing that everywhere to where we’re taking really complex algorithms, wrapping it up into a button click, and then it produces value immediately. I would say just how GIS is so mainstream now, and then how it continues just to help the world and just get easier every year.
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