With the recent uptick of telecom M&A, cell towers are changing hands faster than ever, but their inventory and engineering data don’t always survive the trip. New owners often discover that all the tower data available to them is a patchwork of outdated 2D CAD drawings, bunch of PDFs listing equipment installed on towers, hand sketches drawn by tower climbers, etc. After stitching it all together, many questions surrounding accurate asset information bubble up. Since there is no central source of truth to leverage for decision-making, reconciliation along with operating and maintaining tower infrastructure becomes a very difficult and costly process.

Bentley Systems recently launched a new design product that automates the creation of digital twins for telecom towers. OpenTower iQ gives designers and contractors 3D visualization and predictive design for utility towers. It enables data captured by drones to be brought into 3D models and lets users incorporate artificial intelligence to inform design decisions using Bentley’s iTwin cloud service.

Using computer programming, mere zeroes and ones, Bentley Systems has helped to build some really big things in the infrastructure space. Take, for example, the Sea-Tac Airport International arrivals facility in Washington State, Melbourne Rectangular Stadium in Australia, and the Gordie Howe International Bridge between Detroit, MI and Canada. You can add to that thousands of cell towers.

OpenTower iQ is a newer division in Bentley to focus our digital twin offerings in the telecom sector. I help to manage this group. Bentley’s digital twin platform, known as iTwin is offered as a PaaS (platform as a service) solution allowing our users and partners to develop and customize products to suit their needs and requirements.

OpenTower iQ has been steadily transforming how the telecommunications industry handles tower management, but the digital twin solution didn’t start its life as the best-in-category leader it is today. Hear from Apurba Tribedi, Senior Director of Tower Products at Bentley Systems, about how OpenTower iQ became a powerhouse solution.