340-home FTTH rollout, from a marked-up street map

Starting from a marker line, not a survey

The client's planning team had already decided the route in their heads; what they had on paper was a single street map photo with the proposed path hand-drawn in marker, plus a spreadsheet of approximate home counts per street. That's a common and entirely workable starting point — the marker line captures intent, not engineering detail, and treating it as anything more would have baked the same assumptions into the design that made it rough in the first place.

Checking intent against what's actually there

Before any drawing work started, every proposed run was checked against available duct occupancy and pole records for that corridor. Two streets in the original sketch crossed a likely duct conflict; both were flagged back to the client with an alternative routing option rather than designed around silently. That one check is usually the difference between a design that survives construction unchanged and one that generates a change order in week two.

Building to the ISP's own standard, not a generic one

The client runs its network on a defined GPON architecture and splice convention, so the HLD/LLD package was built directly to that standard rather than a generic template that would need reformatting on the way into their systems. FDH and cabinet placement, splice diagrams and the KMZ network record all came out in the format their planning team already works in day to day.

What shipped

• HLD/LLD package covering all 340 homes across the subdivision
• FDH and cabinet placement matched to the client's standard architecture
• Aerial and underground duct routing, checked against existing occupancy records
• Splice diagrams down to the drop
• KMZ network record formatted for direct import into the client's GIS
• A BOQ ready for procurement, tied line-for-line to the drawing set

None of this required a site visit. The whole engagement ran from the marked-up photo, the spreadsheet, and a handful of clarifying questions answered over email — close to the median for how most Pathworks FTTH engagements actually start.