Bentley’s Communications Software Drives New Network Design, Construction, and Operations Efficiencies at Kabel Noord

The new, easy-to-use system has been readily adopted by the Kabel Noord staff and the contractors to whom it outsources all of its network builds. The innovative and flexible system is enabling these project teams to engineer in both coax and fiber using a single interface and to store the data in an Oracle database.

Commenting on his company’s decision to choose the broad set of engineering capabilities provided by the Bentley communications solution, Anton van der Hoek, head of technical services at Kabel Noord, said, “In the Netherlands, recommendations go a long way. When we started asking questions about tools available to meet our demanding requirements, Bentley Systems came up time and again as the leading source.

“The system we previously deployed didn’t provide the proper graphics and made it difficult, if not impossible, for us to store the right attributes for our network infrastructure. That’s why we decided to research other systems. Our evaluation of Bentley products made it clear that their many capabilities and benefits are the best fit for our demanding needs. Now that we are putting our new Bentley products to work for us, we have more accurate data, can design faster, can publish our GIS data to nontechnical users, and are able to integrate successfully with other enterprise systems.”

A key advantage of Bentley’s GIS platform is that once the data is created, it can be used across multiple disciplines and shared with all departments within the organization. The products typically are employed by design engineers, construction crews in the field, and engineers supporting fault recovery. Increasingly, the data is being used to drive capacity planning operations.

Through its deployment of Bentley Geo Web Publisher, which can publish spatial data over the web and support all types of queries through a simple, intuitive interface, the Kabel Noord project teams can readily access infrastructure data through a standard web browser. This extended access to the intelligent network model empowers additional members of the Kabel Noord team, including customer service representatives – who can use this information to respond more quickly to queries from customers.

The value of the data is further enhanced by its integration with CRM and ERP systems, which Kabel Noord has already successfully implemented. Bentley software’s full support of this integration was yet another reason for its selection.

The easy-to-use Bentley software is providing the Kabel Noord project teams with increased productivity and consequent cost savings. The data created using Bentley Fiber can readily be taken into the field using Bentley PowerMap Field for Communications, and the system’s powerful and intuitive graphics are enhancing and facilitating all design work. At the same time, the quality of the data has improved.

As Mr. van der Hoek explained, “Our designers and construction engineers are staying within the workflows and committing all changes to the as-built because they like working in the Bentley environment. The Bentley products are powerful, yet intuitive to use, and they make engineering design easier.”

For additional information about Bentley Geo Web Publisher, visit www.bentley.com/GeoWebPublisher. For additional information about Bentley PowerMap Field, visit www.bentley.com/PowerMapField. For additional information about Bentley Fiber, visit www.bentley.com/Fiber.

About Kabel Noord

Kabel Noord is a fast-growing communications service provider delivering multiple services over coax and fiber infrastructure to homes and businesses in the North of The Netherlands. The company offers analog TV, digital TV, telephony, and Internet access to its more than 23,000 customers. Kabel Noord has been in operation for more than 30 years and is owned jointly by five local authorities. It has built an extensive network with a fiber backbone and the final 500 meters from the 80 distribution points are being built with coax. For additional information about Kabel Noord, visit www.kabelnoord.nl.

About Bentley Systems, Incorporated

Bentley is the global leader dedicated to providing architects, engineers, constructors, and owner-operators with comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure. Founded in 1984, Bentley has more than 2,700 colleagues and offices in more than 45 countries, achieved in 2008 the milestone of $500 million in revenues, and, since 1995, has invested more than $1 billion in research, development, and acquisitions.

For additional information about Bentley, visit www.bentley.com. To subscribe to an RSS feed of Bentley press releases and news alerts, visit www.bentley.com/rss/news. To view a searchable collection of innovative infrastructure projects from the annual Be Inspired Awards, visit www.bentley.com/yearininfrastructure. For information about Be Communities, a professional networking site that enables members of the infrastructure community to connect, communicate, and learn from each other, visit http://communities.bentley.com.