Why trusted network data matters more than ever…let’s answer that and more in this article.

Walk into any network operations center and ask five engineers where a specific customer service is running. You will likely get five different answers. Not because the engineers lack expertise, but because they rely on fragmented, outdated, or disconnected systems.

As networks expand with fiber rollouts, 5G upgrades, and IoT, the volume of data grows even faster. But when that data cannot be trusted, the impact is visible everywhere. Engineers lose confidence in diagrams. Managers question reports. Executives make decisions on misleading information.

The financial risks are real and measurable. According to Gartner, poor data quality costs organizations an average of 12.9 million USD per year. In telecom, the impact is even larger. Ghost circuits, delayed activations, and unnecessary capacity builds are all symptoms of unreliable data.

The reality is simple: if you do not have trusted network data, you cannot operate with confidence.

The hidden risks of operating without trusted data

Unreliable data is not just a technical headache. It creates measurable risks across the business.

• Financial waste – Operators often keep paying for services that no longer exist. Ghost circuits, duplicate records, or unused leased lines stay in billing systems because no one can prove they are obsolete. Over time, this adds up to millions in unnecessary spending. Capacity planning is also distorted. When utilization figures are inaccurate, planners request upgrades in already overbuilt regions, while real growth areas are neglected. The result is wasted capital and lost opportunity.
• Slower service delivery – When an enterprise orders a new service, customers expect it quickly. But if provisioning teams do not trust the data, every order requires manual validation: checking ports, confirming routes, and double-checking constraints.
• What should be routine takes days or even weeks. Customers grow frustrated and competitors gain an advantage. Sales promises go unfulfilled, and operations are left to firefight.
• Longer outages – In an outage, the most important questions are simple: what failed, and who is impacted? Without trusted data, those answers are not available. Engineers jump between OSS platforms, spreadsheets, and vendor systems, wasting precious time.
• The Uptime Institute’s 2023 Annual Outage Analysis shows that more than two-thirds of all major outages cost over USD 100,000 each (Uptime Institute). Every extra minute of confusion magnifies both financial and reputational damage.
• Compliance and audit failures – Regulators demand accurate, auditable records. In the EU, the NIS2 Directive requires operators to demonstrate control of assets and dependencies. ENISA’s guidance makes clear that reliable inventories and dependency maps are essential evidence (ENISA). When data is inconsistent or fragmented, audits turn into stressful firefights. Findings pile up, penalties loom, and reputations suffer.
• Poor strategic decisions – Executives depend on utilization reports for investment decisions. If those reports are wrong, money flows to the wrong places. Expansions target the wrong regions, upgrades are delayed where customers are waiting, and opportunities are missed.
• Without trusted data, strategy is guesswork.

Why does every team feels the pain of bad data?

Ask anyone in your organization about data accuracy and you will hear the same frustration. The way it shows up depends on their role: from engineers in the field to executives in the boardroom, untrusted data makes every job harder.

Field engineers
Engineers frequently arrive on-site with diagrams showing a free port or available fiber. But when they open the cabinet, they find the port is already occupied or incorrectly labeled. The job gets delayed. They must return later. SLAs are missed, travel costs increase, and team morale drops. With trusted network data, engineers would only make one trip, confident the design reflects reality.

Operations staff
Provisioning teams spend hours cross-checking systems before delivering a service. They know if they rely blindly on inventory, they risk fallout and rework. Every delayed order ties up resources and frustrates customers. With accurate data, provisioning could be completed in hours, not days, allowing operations to meet sales commitments confidently.

Planners and designers
Design teams rely on utilization reports and asset records to plan expansions or upgrades. When the baseline is wrong, projects are built on flawed assumptions. Fiber routes turn out incomplete, or capacity is already consumed. Rework inflates costs and delays launches. Trusted data ensures designs are realistic from the start.

Finance teams
Without proof of what really exists, finance continues paying invoices for ghost services. Disconnecting them feels risky if the records cannot confirm whether they are active. Over time, this silent drain consumes millions. Accurate inventory allows finance to challenge vendors and cancel unnecessary spending with confidence.

Compliance officers
For compliance teams, every audit feels like a scramble. Evidence must be gathered from multiple systems that do not match, and discrepancies invite findings. Trusted data changes the experience: auditors are presented with clean, consistent records, reducing stress and ensuring smoother reviews.

Executives
Senior leaders need clarity to make investment decisions. When reports are doubted, decisions slow down or go the wrong way. Expansions may be delayed, or funds misallocated. Trusted network data restores confidence, enabling leaders to act decisively and strategically.

Five steps to investigate and validate your data

Rebuilding trust in network data does not begin with buying new tools. It starts with a disciplined investigation of what you already have. The process can feel daunting but breaking it down into five steps makes it manageable and effective.

• Step 1: Map your data sources
  Document all systems holding network data: OSS, NMS, GIS, spreadsheets, and legacy tools.
• Step 2: Compare and identify conflicts
  Search for mismatched entries, duplicate records, and missing values.
• Step 3: Validate with reality
  Use discovery tools or field audits to confirm the live network.
• Step 4: Reconcile and clean
  Merge, correct, and eliminate outdated records.
• Step 5: Create a trusted baseline
  Establish a single, authoritative dataset with clear ownership and update workflows.

Example: In one audit, an operator discovered that a quarter of its inventory was inaccurate or duplicated. By reconciling the data, they eliminated waste, reduced provisioning times, and restored confidence across teams.

Why do one-time cleanups always fail?

Cleanups deliver temporary relief, but networks change every day. New equipment is added, services provisioned, and old assets retired.

If validation is not continuous, errors creep back. Within months, teams lose confidence again and return to workarounds. Lasting trust requires automation. Live systems must feed updates directly into inventory, anomalies must be flagged, and governance must resolve them quickly. Without this loop, cleanup and decay repeat endlessly.

How does VC4’s Service2Create keep your data trusted?

VC4 developed Service2Create (S2C) to make trusted data a default state, not a one-time project. It’s designed to support continuous validation, ensuring data accuracy over time.

What S2C delivers:

• Automated reconciliation across IP, fiber, transport, and mobile systems.
• Unified data access for all teams using a single, consistent source.
• GIS-based visualization to trace service paths and dependencies.
• Proactive validation that flags issues before they impact customers.

Why it matters to each role:

• Engineers avoid wasted site visits.
• Operations deliver faster and with fewer errors.
• Finance cancels ghost invoices with confidence.
• Executives plan investments based on reliable reports.
• Compliance teams’ handover clean, auditable records.

S2C turns trusted network data into a permanent operating principle.

Trusted data starts now

Untrusted data is an invisible threat that slowly drains efficiency, wastes money, and damages customer trust.

But it can be fixed.

1. Investigate and validate what you have.
2. Reconcile errors and establish a baseline.
3. Sustain accuracy with automation using Service2Create.

At VC4, we help operators transform unreliable records into a trusted foundation for efficiency, compliance, and growth. Service2Create keeps your network data clean and dependable as the network evolves.

If your teams have ever asked, “Which diagram is correct?”, that is your signal to act. Inaccurate data adds cost, risk, and confusion every single month. Trust cannot wait. It must be built into your operations. The question is simple: can you trust your network data today?