Acquires Company-Wide GIS Site License

BellSouth Implements Enterprise GIS Tailored to Its Needs

In 1998, Esri's Professional Services Division began working with BellSouth Corporation to improve the company's existing facility and landbase management program by implementing Outside Plant Engineering Design System (OPEDS) Stage 4.0, an enterprise GIS designed specifically for the Atlanta-based company.

BellSouth Corporation is a $23 billion communications services company. It provides telecommunications, wireless communications, cable and digital TV, directory advertising and publishing, and Internet and data services to more than 34 million customers in 19 countries worldwide. BellSouth provides telecommunications services in nine southeastern states, including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. With its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, BellSouth serves more than 24 million local telephone lines and provides local exchange and intraLATA long distance service over one of the most modern telecommunications networks in the world.

The enterprise GIS, jointly developed with Byers Engineering Company, provides BellSouth with a centralized corporate record of land and facility data in an open environment. This enables BellSouth users to produce and maintain facility, parcel, street, and other boundary data in a seamless ArcSDE database. The resulting data is then distributed to various departments within BellSouth via the corporate Intranet.

"The implementation of this technology will allow BellSouth to continue providing the highest level of customer service available in the industry," said Pat Geer, BellSouth Regional Landbase Administration Center (RLAC) manager. "We anticipate seeing immediate improvements in employee productivity and overall efficiency through streamlined work processes and the elimination of a duplication of efforts. The system will eliminate the need for multiple, proprietary programs and will provide an open, easy-to-use format for BellSouth employees."

Enterprise GIS offers seamless views of BellSouth's map data, plus a method for integrating the different data and applications developed among their many departments. BellSouth's goals with the software are to increase staff productivity, improve customer service, and ultimately ensure that the company maintains a competitive advantage in its market.

"Previously, many departments within BellSouth produced and maintained their own data using many different systems," says Don Carson, Esri project manager. "The enterprise GIS directly benefits BellSouth employees by providing consistent data in an efficient manner on a common platform."

Landbase Edit GIS Application

BellSouth's Landbase Edit GIS application for editing landbase features is based on ArcInfo software's Open Development Environment (ODE). It is one of the first landbase editing applications coded in ODE. It merges the functionality of ArcInfo with the ease of use of a Visual Basic user-friendly Windows interface to the powerful ArcInfo commands for landbase feature editing from SDE. The Landbase Edit application was integrated with BellSouth's existing work order manager to assist the user through the job process. Included in the application are various methods to precisely place source data in the landbase. Vector data can be imported from various file formats into the landbase. Warping tools are provided to allow proper placement of nonvector source materials. Landbase Edit provides wizards to assist the user and provides access to ArcScan while in the application.

Street maintenance tools provide built-in data validation and street centerline editing in an environment that includes standardized street-naming and address range assignment. The user can generate edge-of-pavement and rights-of-way easements automatically during street placement with built-in intersection cleanup. A full set of parcel editing tools is provided that includes semiautomatic parcel numbering and address assignment. A complete set of boundary editing tools is provided including "polygon-aggregation" for telecommunication-specific boundaries.

Intranet GIS Application

BellSouth's Intranet GIS is a Web-based GIS application including a wide range of GIS capabilities providing direct access to spatial data stored in SDE. The Web application contains an Area of Interest tool that provides a convenient way to access spatial data by selecting a point feature, a polygonal boundary, or coordinate values from any coordinate system. Street address geocoding provides access to data by selecting a street address, street name, or intersection. Feature identification is provided to obtain coordinate readout and linear and polygon attribute review. Multiple zoom level display controls features available for view at each scale. Data delivery to the desktop, a critical BellSouth requirement, is accomplished through a password-controlled download feature allowing conversion of data stored in SDE to the most common CAD and GIS file formats using Safe Software's FME product. "On-the-fly" reprojection is also provided during the download process.

Enterprise Software

As a result of the application development, BellSouth awarded a significant, multiyear contract to Esri this year for the purchase of enterprise GIS software. The contract includes software for data warehousing; landbase and facility data maintenance; specialty map production; and complete, open access to GIS data and applications via a corporate Intranet. ArcSDE software is the universal spatial application server for storing and managing vector, CAD, and image data seamlessly within BellSouth's Oracle relational database management system running on a Hewlett-Packard UNIX server. Using Internet GIS technology from Esri, all landbase and facility data stored in Oracle via SDE can be accessed using the corporate Intranet. Intranet GIS applications allow users to view spatial data sets for a given area of interest, perform basic query and geocoding, and download the map data in various formats to the user's computer. An integral component of the contract is the FME spatial data translation solution from Safe Software Inc. FME for Esri is a powerful, easy-to-use spatial data translator that allows data to be quickly moved between many GIS, CAD, and database formats. FME's data-processing environment enables users to perform many functions with their data including translation, transformation, integration, distribution, manipulation, validation, and reclamation.

"When you talk about deploying an open system, a key component is the ability to integrate and leverage many data sources in one environment," says Don Murray, president, Safe Software. "BellSouth is a terrific example of this, one that can serve as a successful model for other companies as well."

For more information, contact Pat Geer, BellSouth (tel.: 904-350-3312, E-mail: pat.geer@bellsouth.com) or Don Carson, Esri project manager (tel.: 972-664-0457, E-mail: dcarson@esri.com).

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