Current UN Foundations vs New Telecom Domain (in Beta)

[COSPNWGuy]

Could anyone speak to the capabilities of the current telecom UN foundation model verses what is coming in the future (currently being worked on in beta)? I'm trying to determine if I should be migrating our fiber data to what is available now or wait for the beta to release and become supported. I'd really like to get going, but if I am going to be really shooting myself in the foot, I'd rather wait. My understanding is that the new telecom UN domain schema will be more performant particularly for large systems with the invention of "record grouping" in the database to shrink database size. Is that pretty much it as far as features go? We only have about 60 miles of cable (about 33,000 individual strands) and we only model down to strands (no wavelengths, etc). The service area is a mid size city. Needs are pretty straight forward with splicing and OTDR traces etc.

[RemiMyers · Accepted solution]

Simply put, if you are managing just the physical assets in your network, the current foundation model is certainly appropriate.  The new telecom domain was originally conceived for the largest telecom utilities, but there are a number of significant advantages when modeling more complex fiber systems (eg fiber count > 12).  Both models can run OTDR, display both spatial and nonspatial in diagrams, and have similar performance for smaller utilities.  We are working on providing more details as we get closer to release, but at this time, we do not recommend migrating significant data to the beta.  If you need to migrate in the immediate future, please use the foundation dataset and you can always upgrade to the telecom domain (V8) after release.

[SpatialNinja]

Also, this video may help. https://community.esri.com/t5/telecommunications-videos/tgi5-episode-070-utility-network-vs-utility/...

If doesn't directly talk to the capabilities of the telecom domain network, but it does talk to the difference between the Utility Network and the telecom utility network foundation model. One is a capability of ArcGIS providing network connectivity capabilities, and the other is an ArcGIS Solution template providing an example data model that works on the Utility Network.