A Cloud-Based Data Processing and Visualization Pipeline for the Fibre Roll-Out in Germany

Abstract

To support the roll-out of fibre broadband Internet in Germany, Deutsche Telekom has set itself the goal of connecting 3 million households per year. However, planning processes have been very complex in the past due to communication overhead between stakeholders, missing automation, and lack of information. Telekom addresses this by collecting large amounts of data, which can be used to automatically find suitable routes for fibre lines and to determine locations for distribution cabinets. This speeds up planning, but data processing requires automation. We present a cloud-based platform that we have built and operated together with Telekom over the course of the last six years. The platform builds upon research from us, specifically a workflow management system to automate processing, and Fibre3D, a web-based tool that planners use to display the processed data and to perform fine-planning. This paper also includes a practical use case. With the presented technology, Telekom has been able to connected more than 6 million households up to now and expects to even improve on this in the future. We consider our collaboration an example of how well knowledge and technology transfer between research and industry can work and what impact it can have on society.

Keywords: Data processing, Point clouds, Panorama imagery, Cloud Computing, 3D visualization