The hidden problem slowing down AI in broadband

AI is everywhere in broadband but it only works if the data behind it is right.

In this episode Connected Nation, IQGeo’s George Hughes explains how providers can improve data quality, reduce mistakes in the field, and use automation to streamline everything from design to operations. The conversation also explores how AI and automation together are laying the groundwork for more efficient, more reliable networks.

Related links:
IQGeo website 

IQGeo on LinkedIn

George Hughes' LinkedIn 

Transcript

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (00:07):

This is Connected Nation, an award-winning podcast focused on all things broadband. From closing the digital divide to improving your internet speeds, we talk technology topics that impact all of us, our families, and our neighborhoods.

(00:22):

On this episode of Connect Nation, I talk to leadership at IQGeo. Find out the value the company brings to ISPs from automation to years of experience in AI.

(00:33):

I'm Jessica Denson and this is Connected Nation. I'm at Fiber Connect 2026, which is taking place in Orlando, Florida, May 17th through the 20th, and I am joined by George Hughes, who is with IQGEO. He's the head of value consulting. Welcome, George.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (00:53):

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (00:55):

I think of two things when I think of your name. The first is it sounds like a Hollywood name <laugh> George Hughes. Two is I think about, uh, Harvey. Have you ever seen that old movie, Harvey? Yes, yes. And I believe that, um, the main character, his name is George in it. <laugh> Right.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (01:09):

Exactly.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (01:10):

I love that. I love that movie. It's about a big giant fake rabbit who turns out to be real. Yeah. Yeah. <laugh> He's not a, he's called something, but whatever. <laugh> But anyway, um, or George, or maybe is it that it was in, maybe I have the wrong movie. I think, uh, who's the actor that I'm thinking of? The, I, I'll get you the moon, baby. I'll s- I'll, I'll laugh over. Oh,

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (01:30):

Yeah.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (01:30):

I- Uh, from It's a Wonderful Life. Yeah,

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (01:32):

It's a wonderful

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (01:33):

Life.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (01:33):

Yeah, yeah.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (01:34):

That's what happens when I go off on tangent. So we start every podcast with some random tangent in my birthday. No

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (01:41):

Problem. No problem.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (01:42):

Poor George, he's like, "What have I gotten myself into?" <laugh> All right, let's dive into what IQGEO is. And, um, uh, talk about what the company does and what makes it unique.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (01:54):

So we're in a, a unique space in that, um, we are a, uh, a suite of products. So it's not just one product, so it's not just a spot solution- Uh-huh. ... uh, that enables ISPs to deploy fiber, but we are a suite of products, but we leverage AI, um, extensively through the product. So we actually create a foundation to allow them to move to autonomous networks.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (02:19):

Mm-hmm.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (02:20):

So, um, I know autono- and, and autonomous network is kind of like a self-driving car, right? Level zero is manual, like a manual car. Level, if you go all the way up to level four, right, that is, you know, where the car will drive itself. Uh, level five is fully autonomous where a steering wheel is not needed. Oh, wow. So, um, we are trying to help, um, enable operators to move not only from putting the fiber in the ground, but saving on the operations to move to that autonomous level so everything is automated and AI is functioning, um, with, um, not only improving the quality of the data, but allowing AI agents to function so that those operators can move, uh, to an autonomous network.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (03:02):

So your actual suite of products, uh, helps enable them to do those things?

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (03:07):

Exactly. Exactly. So we've, we've taken AI, um, and, you know, there's, there's a lot of companies out there that have AI, right? Uh-huh. In fact, I, I was kidding somebody. We need to walk around and count how many booths have AI on it here at

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (03:18):

AI. <laugh> I mean, really, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's the age of AI. <laugh> Exactly.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (03:22):

Exactly. Uh, but we've been doing it for years now, um, with, uh, a company that, uh, Diplomatic that is now, uh, acquired, um, and integrated fully into our product, that product is, um, uh, it's a computer vision-

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (03:37):

Uh-huh.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (03:38):

... uh, application. So as people are in, um, installing fiber, so either at the house or even if I'm in a splice closure, they take a picture and the picture will analyze whether they did the job right or not.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (03:52):

Oh, wow.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (03:52):

And then it draws kind of a bounding box, you know, around, so if you were supposed to splice blue to blue, it will say whether you did a good job or not, but it analyzes everything about that picture. So if when you open that and you pull the fibers out so when you close the closure, you're gona get too much of a bend radius and cause an issue for a different customer, we analyze that all at that same time and tell you, "Hey, you know, you need to correct this before you close it, but the way how we're improving the data is that we analyze everything. So if you were supposed to splice blue to blue, but then right above you, somebody had previously spliced red to red, but your system of record says red is available. It's not supposed to be spliced." So then we analyze that photo and say, "Okay, now we've got a picture of what is reality.

(04:40):

So now let's update the system so that it matches what's actually out there." And that's kind of the Achilles heel- Uh-huh. ... uh, that a lot of companies, when they say, "Okay, I'm gonna implement AI," is that if the data is not good, right, then AI makes bad choices.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (04:55):

Yes. Uh-huh <affirmative>

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (04:56):

And so we're working to improve the quality of the data so then all of these AI agents that we're continuing to develop and other companies are developing that they can trust the data and so that you can trust the decisions that the I- AI is making.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (05:08):

That's, that's fascinating that it could do that from a photo. Yeah. And, um, and also it's fascinating that that, that mistake is happening. <laugh> <laugh> So, uh, is it just that sometimes you're out in the field, you, you have notes on whatever you have and those notes don't get really transferred properly. Is that what's happening before this process where mistakes are made?

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (05:32):

Yeah, it's, it's a combination of things, um, right? Uh, some is, you know, a lot of mergers and acquisitions are taking place and so sometimes when you acquire a company, their data's not good. Mm-hmm. Sometimes they used a subcontractor that said that they spliced it, but they didn't really, right? Uh-huh. Um, and so then they, it never got reflected in their system of record. Um, other times it is just the lack of mobile tools that have been out there in the field. So, um, if I'm, um, if I do a red line, so I'm supposed to do this work, but I realized I can't for this reason, that I did something different, then, um, there's a lot of companies that just have paper red lines, right? Gotcha. So they actually mark on it and then that paper sometimes never makes it into the engineer to make it, um, make that update into the system of record.

(06:20):

But there's other cases where,

(06:22):

Um, that they have some mobile tools where they can highlight, um, you know, on your geospatial record to say, "I did this differently." But then they, it relies on that going to a ticket to an engineer who's doing designs for an entirely different community that says, "I'll do that later," and then they never do it later, right? So that's- Gotcha. ... that's been the issue. It's just, it's, it's not because people wanna make mistakes. <laugh> Yeah, no. Yeah. Yeah. It's just that, you know, that, uh, unfortunately with fiber and especially with bead, you know, is, um, it's a, it's kind of a race, right, to get everything done and, um, when that happens, you know, when you apply pressure to employees, yeah, that's what happens.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (07:03):

So then you end up with, uh, with IQGEO, you end up with this digital archive of things and this AI can look and see where those mistakes were made in a quick way that maybe a human being sometimes misses.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (07:15):

Exactly. Gotcha.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (07:16):

Exactly. Gotcha. And, and what other ways is IQGEO working with AI, how does that work with the customers?

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (07:23):

So, um, uh, we actually, it's, it's not AI. I know a lot of people call a lot of automation AI. Yeah, yeah. It's not really, but we have an auto design. Uh-huh. So like I can draw just a polygon around a community and say design my fiber to the home and it will go ahead and automatically create your high level design and it flows into our product. We have a workflow engine that is in there. Uh-huh. We

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (07:46):

Have

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (07:46):

AI integrated within that workflow engine as well so that if something goes wrong, right, the AI will make recommendations on what you need to do differently. Um, and then we also have a poll agent, um, uh, AI agent that we have that uses imagery.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (08:02):

Uh-huh.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (08:02):

Um, that imagery can be just regular imagery or LiDAR data and, uh, we're even, um, uh, working with customers like Google- mm-hmm. ... uh, to where we can use their, their street view data. And then we gather that data, our AI just like looking at that picture, analyzes that information and we can give you detailed information about the poll itself.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (08:23):

Gotcha. So you- So, so you're using AI in different ways, just like out in the real world, people are starting to use different kinds of AI bots and different kinds of AI platforms in different ways.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (08:34):

That's correct.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (08:35):

That's correct. That's awesome. And I like that you said that it's not always just AI, it's automation as well. Right. And, uh, it brings me back, it's funny that you're my last interview of the conference and my first interview of the conference was talking about the future and he said, "I think that it's gonna be automation, automation, automation." <laugh> And what would you say to that?

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (08:57):

I would agree 100%. Mm-hmm. You know, I, uh, so, um, my, my background, uh, prior to, uh, coming to IQGeo, I, uh, spent 34 years at Verizon in their IT department-

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (09:07):

Uh-huh.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (09:08):

... and I've worked on pretty much all systems across Verizon, whether it was ordering, billing, finance, did pretty much everything but HR systems and supply chain. Uh-huh. But I, most of that time was in a network systems, uh, area and, um, the way how IQGEO, not only from that automation that I mentioned before, but we have a different design philosophy that other companies don't necessarily have. A lot of companies take a look at how can I reduce the number of clicks, right? Make my engineer the most productive. So if I, it takes 10 clicks to do something, can I reduce it to nine, right? We approach it as why put that on the screen for an engineer to click, right? Automate it, right? If, uh, if, why, why do those 10, right? Just don't do it. You understand what the intent is. Mm-hmm. You know, what is the engineer trying to do?

(10:02):

Um, the example I gave is, um, if there's a fiber cut, right? Most systems, if there's a fiber cut, you go into the system, um, and you say, "Okay, I've got to put a closure there and then I've got to splice the connections together. So I got to go into my tool and I've got to bring the fiber up on one side, the other fiber on the other side after it's, it's cut, put the closure in and then go and connect it within the system. Within IQO, that's one button, right? It's like, we know what you're trying to do. " <laugh> So why, why do it so manually, right? Just click a button and, and do it. So that, that's kind of like, you know, when he said automation, automation, automation, that's very true. Um, but it's, it's got to be integrated into the design philosophy so as you're developing the software that, that's kind of a mantra.

(10:50):

Uh-huh.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (10:50):

You know,

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (10:51):

Don't add things on the screen for someone to manually do, just automate it all.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (10:55):

Yeah, so that it's, it, you, you streamline everything, there's efficiencies and productivity goes up, free up people to do other things that are, that can't just be automated and so on and so forth-

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (11:06):

Exactly.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (11:07):

... add innovation into that mix and you've got a good, good little recipe, right? <laugh>

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (11:11):

Exactly. Yeah.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (11:13):

So I see that you're, uh, you were a sponsor and an exhibitor- Yes. ... IQGEO, not you, George. <laugh> But, um, why, why was it important to exhibit it and sponsor, uh, at Fiber Connect?

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (11:27):

So we wanted to, um, be able to, um, show potential customers, right, as well as some partners. We had a lot of partners that came by our booth as well.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (11:35):

Uh-huh.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (11:35):

We wanted, uh, to show them kind of the suite of products and the, the, the direction that we, uh, have went, right? Um, to show the AI that is actually working.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (11:45):

Uh-huh.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (11:46):

So the, you know, like I said, a lot of AI on Boost. So we wanted to explain to customers coming in, that's one thing to put AI on the booth. Another is, you know, those pictures that I talked about- Uh-huh <affirmative> We've analyzed over a billion, right? Wow. We have around 30,000, uh, users that are taking pictures every single day using our, our software. Mm-hmm. So it's, it's tried, it's true, it works there, you know, we've got hundreds of, you know, uh, proof points of where it's worked, uh, internationally as well as here in the United States as well. So we wanted to, to demonstrate so that, that people understood that it's an option, right? Mm-hmm. Some people say that, you know, you know, when, when I've talked to them, they've said, "George, you know, we're not ready." <laugh> Yeah. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm still having trouble, you know, getting my red lines updated in my main system, you know, let alone, you know, having, you know, AI function.

(12:38):

And so I was like, well, you gotta start somewhere, right? Yeah. If you don't improve the quality of the data, you're not gonna get there. This is one way to get there. It's like step one.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (12:46):

That's ex- that's exciting. What, other than George, I'm not ready, what, what else were you hearing from customers at the booth about, um, your products and what their challenges and opportunities are?

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (12:58):

I think the, um, some of the challenges and I, I, I think it gets into, you know, kind of my job is value consulting. Uh-huh. So it's, it's consulting, but it's also explaining the business value that your product brings, right? Uh-huh. So whenever we do improve the quality of the data, what does that mean for an operator? Mm-hmm. Right? Does it, does it mean that I do it right the first time? So I save that second dispatch. I save getting a customer upset, right? Right. Which means that that's a higher churn, uh, possibility, especially within the first six months. So, um, a lot of the things that, that I'm hearing is that people are asking, "Okay, um, I know about AI, I wanna get into it, right? We've done some experiments, but can I really afford doing something new?" Mm-hmm. Right? And it's, um, what I do on a daily basis, I talk to these providers, not only consult, right- Uh-huh.

(13:51):

... and, and, and help them, but then I also say is, you know, these are the value items that you see, right? What are the metrics that are important to you and how can we change those metrics and what does that do from a dollar perspective? 'Cause most of the time, whenever you take a look at, especially our products, whenever I've done that analysis, it's generally a four to one. So for every dollar you spend on our AI, you're getting $4 in return.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (14:14):

That's incredible. Yeah. That's a, that's a, that's what you call good R- ROI, right? <laugh> Exactly.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (14:19):

Exactly.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (14:20):

So, uh, what's, what is the footprint for IQGEO? Is it national, international? You mentioned international kind of as, as an aside, but, but where, where is IQGEO based and what's its footprint?

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (14:32):

Yeah. We are a worldwide, uh, company. Uh-huh. Our, our headquarters is in, uh, Cambridge, England.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (14:37):

Uh-huh.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (14:37):

Um, we have, our US headquarters is in Denver. Uh, we've got an office in Toronto, office in Paris, um, and, uh, office in Tokyo. So we are actually, um, all over.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (14:49):

You're global for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And how long have you been with IQGEO?

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (14:53):

I have been, uh, with IQGEO a little over a year now.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (14:56):

Uh-huh. And you, you said you were with Verizon for several decades.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (15:00):

Yes.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (15:00):

Um, how has it been being with the new companies? You seem really excited about it, I guess is what I'm getting to.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (15:05):

Yeah, I am. It's, it's, it's quite different, you know? Um, but, uh, I like the role, right? It, it gets, you know, me an opportunity to talk to customers to help them. You know, I, I, I tell people that, um, all of those years that I worked, you know, create ... I started out as a programmer analyst, right? Mm-hmm. So in addition to doing programming, you know, there's, there's been certain events when I worked at Verizon that you made a difference, right? So like when we did our very first fiber to the home, right, that was something that was a memory maker, right? Where you're changing the market that FTTP is now everywhere, right?

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (15:42):

Uh-huh.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (15:43):

And then when 5G was launching, right, that was something that was real important to me that we were getting 5G out there, um, that it was gonna change the way how, you know, all the cell phones function- Yeah. ... and then improve the speed, reduce the latency. So there was things when you're changing the market and those, you know, those things that like if I, when I worked at Verizon, if I just replaced system A with system B, it's kind of like, yeah, you know, yeah, I did it, I liked it, it was okay, but, you know, I wanna go onto something that's important. So here at IQGeo, when I'm consulting with those customers and I'm helping them make a change, right- mm-hmm. ... to their company, it's not just I'm replacing their old system, right? I'm helping them, right? I'm, so I can show them the value, I can show them how they can improve their metrics and it, you know, I, I like that it's like job satisfaction, right?

(16:35):

Yeah. It is, I, I like, it gives me excited when they're excited, you know, when they're like, "George, thank you so much." Uh-huh. You know, it's really helped.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (16:42):

I'm staring your title value <laugh>.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (16:44):

Yeah, exactly.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (16:45):

Yeah.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (16:46):

Exactly.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (16:46):

So, uh, what, what about the next year, five years, 10 years or is IQ, what, how, what is IQGEO looking forward to? What are, what are you hearing? Is there any talk or is there anything you're excited about moving forward?

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (17:01):

So I'm, I'm very excited about the new ideas that we're having from an AI agent-

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (17:07):

Uh-huh.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (17:07):

... and how we're using AI in the future, um, and, and trying to solve some of the, the industry issues, right? So, um, it's, it's along the lines of, you know, now that we have a good foundation, um, you know, so it's, it's auto design, the system of record, we've got a workflow, we've got, um, other capabilities to modernize, you know, the solution on how you can give accurate estimates to sell the fiber that you have- Uh-huh <affirmative>. ... in the ground. So we're really helping operators, you know, overall to do that. Uh, also have, um, uh, utility products as well that we help from a, uh, power and gas as well- Uh-huh <affirmative>. ... and we're leveraging that AI in those other areas as well. Um, and you know, so like I, I tell people, if you're installing an ONT on the side of a house for fiber and you wanna make sure that you take that picture and it tells you it's a good job, that's completely different than if you're installing a gas meter.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (18:07):

Yeah. 'Cause

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (18:07):

If you do a bad job on a gas meter install, there is a big problem,

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (18:11):

Right? Yeah, it's a big problem.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (18:13):

<laugh> So, you know, it's, it's helping out in other ways and, you know, kind of as we're developing more and more of these agents to function on good quality data so that you can actually trust the AI and what it's making recommendations for, I think that it's really going to enable a lot of change faster.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (18:31):

So you mentioned pa- power. So digress a little bit in that, you know, data centers right now, there's a lot of talk about the power it takes to power a data center. Yeah. Uh, are you guys involved in any of that or working with any of that stuff?

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (18:45):

So it's more, uh, from a utility-

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (18:47):

Gotcha.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (18:47):

... uh, the power utility itself. Not, we're not specializing in any data center or, you know, any, uh, power construction so to speak. Uh-huh <affirmative>. It is, you know, more of, you know, when they're going into their geospatial, uh, systems to design- Gotcha. ... where those power lines are going to go to reach, you know, new data centers.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (19:07):

Gotcha. Well, I have some good news. What's that? I remember the name of that actor. It's Jimmy Stewart. Jimmy Stewart. Yes. <laugh> I wrote it down. And I think it's, I think I was thinking of it's a wonderful life when that's who, when he plays George, not Harvey. Yeah. Wrong movie, wrong movie. Well, George Hughes with IQGEO, I really appreciate your time. He's the head of value consulting. I'll include a link to your company and your LinkedIn. Do you have a LinkedIn? Yes, I do. All right. I'll include a link to that in the description of this podcast so people can connect with you. Um, I really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much. Oh,

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (19:36):

Thank you.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (19:37):

Mm-hmm.

George Hughes, Head of Value Consulting, IQGeo (19:37):

Thanks.

Jessica Denson, Podcast Host (19:38):

I'll continue my coverage from Fiber Connect 2026 in upcoming episodes of the Connected Nation podcast. Until then, I'm Jessica Denson and this is Connect to Nation. If you wanna know more about us, head to connectednation.org and you can find our latest episodes on your favorite podcast platform.