Last month, HIP Consult celebrated its 100-country milestone for the data visualization and analytics platform, InfraNav. The platform began as an initiative to collect data in order to respond to supply-side infrastructure gaps that impede strategic fiber network planning. Initially, InfraNav was an internal effort to aggregate fiber network maps and create geospatial network data in South Africa, then Africa, and has since become the most comprehensive GIS database of digital infrastructure spanning across Latin America, Africa and Asia.
Over the past five years, InfraNav has been developed to build, deliver and scale the process of infrastructure mapping and analytics. With an ongoing collection, curation and validation of fiber networks, as well as data centers, IXPs and other ICT infrastructure data, the platform’s intelligence continues to grow. In pursuit of optimizing network planning and deployment, an aggregation capability was developed to layer infrastructure data with demand considerations using granular datasets that reflect socio-economic indicators like GDP, population density, as well as development-focused statistics like infant mortality and literacy.
InfraNav will continue to expand and mature to better respond to the challenges and pain points of digital infrastructure stakeholders. Currently, the team is working to integrate additional points of interest like financial access, energy and power infrastructure. The platform now includes mapping of supplementary assets like microwave, VSAT along with school and hospital locations for the Data Laboratory Countries of Bolivia, Kenya and Bangladesh.
Examples of applications that InfraNav is currently addressing include:
Operator densified fiber and BTS planning;
Qualitative and quantitative assessments of infrastructure bottlenecks and investment potential; and,
Identifying infrastructure sharing and interconnection opportunities
As the platform continues to acquire relevant types of related data, its applicable use cases continue to multiply. The roadmap for InfraNav includes the integration of major deployment dependencies like spectrum allocation and Rights of Way (RoW).
Reaching 100-countries is a major achievement, but this is only the beginning. As InfraNav expands its depth and reach, the focus will be on developing algorithms and methodologies to better standardize metrics for achieving ubiquitous connectivity. InfraNav hopes not only to determine how much infrastructure exists across all countries, but also be able to calculate how much investment is needed to most effectively and efficiently connect populations.
Additionally, algorithms are being developed to more adeptly quantify the effects of internet connectivity on other sectors, like health and education. These metrics can help to guide both public and private sector players in streamlining budgets while pushing forward SDGs and other development agendas.
We welcome any commentary or feedback on InfraNav’s current and future features. Please feel free to visit www.infranav.com to learn more or schedule a demo.