Drawing board at the desktop >BY DAN O'SHEA, Technology Editor

As network operators augment their networks and build new infrastructures to deliver personal communication services, cable telephony and other broadband services, their ability to plan precisely could save or lose them money.

A few years back, such planning would have required network managers and planners to spend lots of time doing freehand drawing and analysis-hardly an exact science. Software-based mapping tools now streamline and advance the network planning process by bringing it to the desktop.

Desktop mapping enables planners to plot spatial relationships on electronic environmental maps and add or edit graphic objects such as lines, points and shading to delineate network coverage and help locate network elements, said Thomas Holec, project manager at MapInfo. The Troy, N.Y.-based company created the MapInfo Professional and ProServer product suites.

MapInfo Professional is the company's Windows 95-compatible desktop mapping product, which supports object linking and embedding technology. Users can integrate data from a variety of network databases and layer it onto geographic and demographic maps. Users can also query corporate databases for specific geographic information such as locations of all central offices within a 50-mile radius of a certain city, said Holec.

MapInfo ProServer is the company's most recent product, announced this summer. It includes the Professional solution but also lets planners develop Internet-based or intranet-based desktop mapping applications through standard Web browsers. That saves network operators from having to install new software on every planner's computer, said Holec. By using the Internet, users can also query multiple corporate databases for information more broadly without running into logjams.

MapInfo has launched a beta lab of ProServer on the World Wide Web at http://www.mapinfo.com.

Several network operators, including Ameritech, U S West and Time Warner Communications, are using MapInfo products to plan network expansion. Time Warner has been using MapInfo Professional for franchise coverage comparisons that can help the company plan for cable telephony upgrades to its infrastructure, said Tom Happel, geographical market analyst at Time Warner Communications.

"Some of what I'm doing with the product's editing capabilities probably wasn't even possible before. You can change things like franchise boundaries very quickly without having to do it freehand," said Happel.

He began using the product a few years ago after learning about it from colleagues at U S West. Since then, strategic planners and salespeople alike have come to notice the product because it quickly updates network changes, he said.

Although he has not used MapInfo ProServer, Happel said he could see "huge potential" for network operators in using an Internet-based desktop mapping product, "especially when there might be 17 different divisions working on the same type of project."