open eir’s products and services help people communicate – so it comes as no surprise that open eir values the quality of its own communications. The organisation builds and manages Ireland's largest wholesale fibre broadband and telecoms network, which is used by national and international service providers to deliver telephone, broadband and data connectivity for businesses and homes in Ireland. Currently, open eir provides wholesale products to more than forty service providers, and the recent decision to leverage ArcGIS solutions from Esri has opened up new ways for it to communicate with these wholesale customers.

The adoption of ArcGIS was driven by open eir’s ongoing commitment to service improvement. The objective was a step change improvement in the information provided to wholesale customers and end users, allowing them to see, on a live map, where open eir fibre network broadband products are available, on a per premises basis. This information makes it easier for wholesale customers and end users to access open eir’s products.

open eir used Esri’s ArcGIS Desktop and ArcGIS Online solutions to create a customised web app, using a preconfigured geographic information system (GIS) solution, straight ‘off the shelf’. “When you go into a very large department store, it has everything you could possibly need – and that’s what Esri is like for GIS,” explains Aidan Magee, Wholesale Broadband Product Manager at open eir. 

open eir’s new service mapping web app, built on ArcGIS solutions, allows customers to easily search by eircode or address for a property on an interactive map, zoom in, pan out and discover which areas of Ireland have 1 GB fibre-to-home or 100 MB fibre-to-cabinet connectivity. Updated regularly and managed in house, the app allows wholesale customers to access accurate information more easily, on demand, reducing contact with open eir’s customer services team. “ArcGIS solutions allow us to deliver our customers more accurate and detailed information through a fully web-based mapping solution,” explains Magee.

open eir has used ArcGIS solutions for other web-based communications including a web app that was created recently to support a children’s colouring competition. The app showed where the winning pictures would be displayed on cabinets around the country. “I see ArcGIS being used in a lot of different ways to improve communication,” Magee says. “Customers quickly realise and appreciate the power of web based interactive maps.”