We asked Jonathan Restivo, Chief Development Officer at Cityside Networks, to answer five questions about all things fiber. With a focus on innovation and relationships, the Cityside team is growing fiber-based network developments in Orange County, CA.
VETRO is proud to support Jonathan and his team as they work to bring better broadband to communities in southern California and beyond.
Five Questions with Cityside Networks
1. How did Cityside get into the business of fiber internet?
Cityside was formed by telecom industry veterans with the goal of making fiber developments more efficient and effective. We had been experiencing a lot of pain points in deploying the next wave of wireless connectivity mostly because of a lack of readily available fiber and the need to build out single use case infrastructure. It was ridiculously costly and did not have much bigger picture strategy behind it.
Our belief, and what we’re seeing start to take shape in the market, is that shared infrastructure through a comprehensive network development strategy built to layer on multiple use cases throughout a city would greatly benefit the industry and the end user.
2. So, what’s going on with Cityside — any news, milestones, achievements – what’s coming up next?
We are very excited to be launching Cityside Fiber over the coming months in Southern California. Cityside Fiber is our direct-to-consumer brand that will serve as the high-speed, local-focused internet provider for our market, utilizing the brand new fiber network we’re developing throughout Orange County.
We recently announced a funding commitment through our partners SDC Capital, and with that support, we are thrilled to be able to launch what we feel is a tremendous product to our community.
3. What plans/projects did you have in motion when you started shopping for fiber management software?
What has been a challenge, but also a great opportunity for us, has been essentially starting this all from scratch over the last couple of years. The opportunity we had, though, is to be able to select all the best systems from the start and establish an internal ecosystem of SAAS that all integrated together, made deployment and operations easier, and would be great partners for us as we grew together.
4. Why did you choose VETRO?
We evaluated a few options for fiber management tools, and what stood out about VETRO was the level of detail we could get into on a strand-by-strand basis. There are a ton of great tools that are built in that show that the developers and the team at VETRO really understand the market and what a developer/operator is looking for in a management tool. We also felt that even though VETRO was on the younger side as a company, there was a vision and growth trajectory that matched our ambitions and we felt confident the product would continue to evolve and be enhanced in positive ways. Working with Will and Sean and the rest of the team has been really easy and they are always open to feedback.
"What stood out about VETRO was the level of detail we could get into on a strand-by-strand basis. There are a ton of great tools that are built-in that show that the developers and the team at VETRO really understand the market and what a developer/operator is looking for in a management tool.
5. How do you use VETRO FiberMap?
Since we are still launching our network, most of our usage of FiberMap so far has been in planning and organizing our markets. We were able to create a database of addresses with a specificity we needed for our OSS/BSS while also supporting our fiber planning in Vetro, and that has allowed us to create the data layers within FiberMap to really fine tune our efforts. As we design areas and evaluate certain pockets, being able to run calculations on address counts and fiber lengths with the polygon tool is a great feature.
About VETRO, Inc.
VETRO builds software that makes it radically simpler and faster for broadband providers to plan, design, deploy, and operate their fiber optic networks. Our map-based SaaS platform is easier to use and more powerful than traditional tools, and enables network owners, operators and sponsors to benefit from a modern, integrated, and connected digital hub for their physical network assets. We deliver Internet Infrastructure Intelligence.
