Getting it right first time: Telent sees 166% ROI and increases first-time permit approvals by over 30%

About Telent

Telent is a leading technology company with a UK-wide cable network field force.

It maintains the fiber network for the UK’s national strategic road agency, National Highways, providing the mission-critical communications that enable National Highways to control over 30,000 roadside devices and is currently delivering a major project to upgrade the network to the latest high-bandwidth 10GE Transmission network technology.

The Challenge

With the significant effort to deploy fiber throughout the UK, an increasing number of telecom companies are aiming to excavate the streets, facing limitations due to the scarce resources and skilled labor force.

Moreover, the convergence of Brexit and Covid-19 has escalated the expenses and shipment of components, leading to substantial delays.

Telent works with broadband providers such as CityFibre, Openreach and Gigaclear, to process, coordinate and submit permits for fiber construction. They generally handle 80-100 permits a day from Openreach and processed 460 from CityFibre in February alone. Regularly, they found that these permits were being rejected because they lacked visibility of available road space.

“We would have to visit 3 or 4 different systems to find the information we needed for permit applications, and this was very time consuming.”

– Benjamin Pearce, Head of Programme Management, Telent

Telent’s permit planning process was slow, with only 52% of their permits being approved on the initial submission.

They needed a way to make organizing and coordinating fiber works permits from multiple organizations simpler, easier, and less time-consuming.

The Solution

Now, Causeway one.network is Telent’s one-stop shop for planning. They have integrated Causeway one.network into their workflows and depend on it every day to coordinate fiber permit applications.

With access to 30+ data layers, including bus stops, traffic signals, and Section 58 restrictions, Telent has all the information they need in a single environment. Instead of having to click between and look at four different systems, as well as contact several departments at road agencies, they can get all the information they need on Causeway one.network. The data they now have available means they can easily identify bus stop numbers and traffic signals for road closure permits and look at the proximity of schools to works locations to ensure appropriate enforcement times.

Telent can also review current and future scheduled permits months in advance, allowing them to more effectively coordinate work and organize collaborative efforts with other asset owners.

“Causeway one.network has provided an efficient one stop shop, enabling quicker access to permit approvals, speeding up the overall process.”

– Benjamin Pearce, Head of Programme Management, Telent

The Results

Causeway one.network has helped Telent reduce permit rejections and improve relationships with road agencies, as well as speed up efficiency for clients.

It’s proven especially valuable during and post-pandemic, allowing teams to self-source information and feed it back to stakeholders.

Telent reported an over 30% increase in first-time permit approvals, bringing them to 82% permits approved first time.

“We are now far closer to our right first time permit target and have seen a reduction in costs from submitting permit modifications.”

– Benjamin Pearce, Head of Programme Management, Telent

The platform has also eliminated the need for an additional staff member to handle challenged permits and administration, resulting in Telent achieving a 166% return on investment.

Another advantage Telent has unlocked since using one.network is access to a complete audit trail of who has performed civil and digging work on roads. This is particularly crucial if assets are damaged during work as it helps provide evidence back to the source. Now, if Telent is erroneously assigned penalties due to faults, the audit trail on Causeway one.network proves that they were not at fault, helping save time and money.

Key Outcomes

• Over 30% increase in first-time permit approvals, speeding up the process and reducing the costs of submitting modifications to permits.
• 166% return on investment, eliminating the need for an extra staff member to deal with challenged permits and admin.
• Reduced permit planning time, helping achieve team and company targets.

Streamline your permit planning process today. Contact our team for more information and a live demo.