Bentley Copper

Routing and Layout

Bentley Copper uses a graphical routing process based on existing landbase and strand map information such as poles, pedestals, manholes and duct to build an intelligent network model of the copper and related outside plant facilities. Strand map information can also be placed while routing or copper network may be routed without any strand. Bentley Copper enables you to place equipment, layout, edit and design the copper network and document copper pairs while ensuring the network connectivity is correctly maintained. The user interface is designed to increase engineering productivity and reduce the engineering effort required.

Placing Drops and Customer Assignment

Various types of drops and terminals can be placed. The drop length can be automatically calculated or manually entered. A simple process assigns customer(s) to the pairs being installed and users have the option to add customer information and assign an outage priority to them. End-to-end network connectivity from outside to inside plant is maintained during these operations.

Connections and Splicing

After placing copper sheaths and terminating splices, the copper sheaths must be connected to the splices and the central office. This requires connecting copper pairs at splice locations and establishing the complements. The connections can be made manually or automatically. In the manual case, the user is presented with a Copper Pairs connection form to make or check copper pair connections. Copper pairs can be reviewed and traced at any time by using the cross section review function and selecting a copper sheath on the map. In the automatic case, the software starts at the Central Office and traces, matching pairs at every splice along the route. The software is designed for complete flexibility and maximum efficiency in establishing the pair level connectivity in the network model.

Annotating the Network Records

Annotation options are integral to the placement and edit commands. Annotation may be placed for any item of plant or customer location. Users can annotate cable with complement pairs by simply clicking on sheath so that annotation is automatically generated on the cursor for placement. Annotation is automatically updated when changes are made to the network information.

Locates

Handy locate commands are provided so that users can locate a particular device, customer, pair, slack or other location. The locate commands quickly zoom to the associated location for efficient navigation of the network.

Reviewing Outside Plant

Bentley Copper provides functionality to review the detailed properties of any item of plant in the intelligent network model. The cross section review provides functionality to review copper pairs and complement pairs of overhead and underground cable.  The ability to trace pairs and review pair(s) assignment to customers is available from the cross section review.

Engineering Reports

Bentley Copper provides a set of pre-configured reports to support engineering and other activities. These include equipment and device information reports, as well as, Device and Sheath Bill of Materials. The bill of materials can be "global," meaning you want to obtain every sheath and device used in the project or "local" meaning all  devices and sheaths used in the current work order.

Locating Outages

Locate Outage is an efficient way to find the area and other information associated with an outage. Users provide appropriate input and the outage is located and visually marked on the screen. This makes it easy to review pair ranges affected by the outage, troubleshoot the network problem, and identify affected subscribers. The network model also facilitates working hand-in-hand with existing OSS systems. Operations personnel benefit from integration with network monitoring when copper faults are visually located on the detailed maps created by Bentley Copper. They can then take advantage of the readily available, detailed, up-to-date network information found in the copper database.

Tracing and Analysis

Bentley Copper provides for tracing the network model at the sheath, cable, and pair level. When used with Bentley Inside Plant, the network can be traced all the way from subscriber to the wire center.