Giving Broadband the Green Light Part 6: Plot a Smoother Course with Algorithmic Design

You’ve rallied fans, charted a course, found funds, and gotten some help with engineering. Now you’re going to pave the way to success with a detailed network plan powered by Algorithmic Design.

When it comes to designing networks, there are parts of the process that are better handled by machines. The ideal design process is machine-assisted, but human-led. Here’s why.

What is Algorithmic Design, and why does it matter?

By using algorithms to crunch data exponentially faster than people, computers can complete mundane or repetitive tasks in a fraction of the time. This rapid iteration time reduces these tasks from weeks or months to mere hours or days. This, in turn, frees people up to do the tasks we do best—those that require innovation, creativity, collaboration, and making big-picture connections.

In addition, these algorithms complete repeatable tasks without the subjectivity and errors that humans are prone to. This eliminates the quirks and exceptions that otherwise plague construction, operations, and maintenance in later project phases. It also eliminates unpleasant surprises by ensuring a more accurate picture of costs from the outset.

Algorithmic Design is the navigation system that plots the quickest and straightest course to the finish line. But not all human-machine duos are created equal. Read on to learn what to look for in an Algorithmic Design partner.

Who to have in your passenger seat

Your Algorithmic Design partner should have the experience to help you handle all project data and lay out a plan based on your goals. The plan should minimize costs while maximizing scalability. Here are some of the specifics that you’ll want to assess when choosing a partner.

A strong relationship with data

Planning a project accurately depends on the data. The partner you work with will need to know how to get as much of the necessary data upfront. This includes addresses, parcels, geospatial data, utilities, and poles in the area to be covered.

Next, they will have to know how to scrub, analyze, and fuse the data. This includes understanding the sources and age of the data and how to determine its accuracy. They also need to ensure that the data is interoperable between the end-to-end systems. This ensures the accuracy, consistency, and transparency that prevent problems throughout the network planning and construction process.

To be certain that bad data won’t cause problems downstream in the project, your partner also needs to physically confirm in the field that the data is correct. They will be able to do this more efficiently with a digital-first approach using tablets and apps to eliminate manual and duplicative work.

Prioritizing your needs

A “magic numbers” approach that applies one-size-fits-all rules to every project won’t end well. Your design partner should operate from a philosophy that works backward from the desired outcome to create a plan tailored to your unique needs. They’ll have to be able to work with partners across the deployment process to determine the optimal design based on your answers to some key questions:

• Is the goal to create the most accessible and affordable network?
• Do you want to create a future-proof network that maximizes scalability and bandwidth?
• Which one of the above is more important? What are you willing to compromise on?

Your network designer will need to help you navigate the tradeoffs between costs and functionality. A more affordable network may offer broader coverage geographically and be more accessible to customers with lower incomes. On the other hand, the more your community can invest, the more they can future-proof their network. A platinum-level network would scale with the community no matter how much it grew or how much more bandwidth it required down the road.

However, a platinum network is costly to build. It requires laying fiber, which is an expensive process. It also requires thicker cables, wider ducts to run more cables, potential a mix of anchor institutions, and more distribution hubs. Depending on local financials, your community may not be able to afford such a design, even with government subsidies and private investors.

Your funding sources and the commercial feasibility of the network also influence the design. Private investors typically want to see a return on investment within two to five years, while public investment and subsidies have longer return on investment expectations.

You’ll want to remove guesswork and make your choice based on hard numbers as much as possible. With Algorithmic Design, you can compare and contrast different designs from basic to top-of-the-line. This enables you to perform a cost-benefit analysis for every network design tier and find the best fit for your project goals.

Make Biarri Networks your co-pilot

At Biarri Networks, we’re not just designing networks. We empower people. Our work connects communities, especially those who have been forgotten, left behind, or priced out. We accelerate digital equality so that everyone can participate fully in contemporary society— regardless of socioeconomic status, race, age, and other discrepancies.

With every interaction, we aim to leave a positive impact on each other, clients, communities, and the planet. And with more than a decade of experience honing our approach, we are writing the playbook on realizing connection.

Our approach

We believe in the power of mathematics to make design quicker, more accurate, and more objective. By leveraging algorithms to crunch the data, we free up creative resources for innovative and collaborative project work. This democratizes broadband connection, making it more cost-effective and universally accessible.

We proactively seek out the right data and verify its accuracy by the numbers and in the field. Then we make it interoperable across the deployment systems that depend on it, from planning to construction to maintenance.

Adding one address at a time leads to shortsighted planning, errors, and dead ends. Instead, we’re big-picture connectors who blanket areas with broadband. That’s how we connected over 17 million homes in a single year.

A team you can trust

Our proven process gets results. That’s why clients come back to us again and again, and to this day, we have 100% client retention. Government and private-sector broadband leaders count on us to help build strategies to connect communities nationally and globally. We’re often called in to help fix projects that have gone off the rails.

Part of the formula that fuels our success is our people. Our team honors the work and each other, and we value doing the right thing for those we serve—always. Our culture of support and growth brings out the strengths of our employees and the partners and clients we collaborate with.

The other part is innovation. Whether it’s incremental (small gains over time) or big-step innovation (big strides, radical change), we challenge ourselves to be more creative and efficient. One way you can see this is in the way we leverage technology and mathematics in the Algorithmic Design process.

Who we partner with

Working with us means working with a greater team. We break down silos by collaborating with everyone involved in the project, from end-to-end deployment partners to construction crews. This ensures that our designs incorporate as much insight and information as possible from partners. It also allows us to innovate together to move the whole industry forward.

Algorithmic Design will carry you into the future

Algorithmic Design sets a more precise course than what humans can achieve alone. Machine-assisted, human-led design ensures that network design is tailored to your goals while remaining efficient, consistent, and error-free. Biarri Networks has more than a decade of experience innovating to connect communities nationally and globally. Our data-driven designs and industry-wide collaboration help ensure projects stay on course to the finish line and beyond.

To learn more about planning a broadband project, Algorithmic Design, or Biarri Networks, be sure to visit our news page. Got questions? Reach out to us. We have answers.