Patent ID: 7207012
Filing Date: 2007-04-17
Classification: G06F,G06Q,G09B

Abstract:
1. A method for maintaining and graphically displaying information regarding the geographic location of telecommunications cable in a metropolitan area, the method comprising: receiving geographic information in a computer readable form sufficient to generate an electronic map of the metropolitan area; receiving vendor information in a computer readable form for at least one vendor who owns telecommunication cable in the metropolitan area, the vendor information comprising: the location of telecommunications cable in the metropolitan area; the owner of the telecommunications cable; the locations of nodes associated with the telecommunications cable; and the type of nodes associated with the telecommunication cable; providing a graphical user interface permitting the user to select at least one vendor from the at least one vendors who owns telecommunications cable in the metropolitan area; receiving user input selecting at least one of the vendors who own telecommunications cable in the metropolitan area; generating a display layer graphically illustrating the metropolitan area; generating display layers graphically illustrating the vendor information for the telecommunications cable of each of the vendors selected by the user; displaying the display layer graphically illustrating the metropolitan area and the display layers graphically illustrating the vendor information for the telecommunications cable of each of the at least one vendors selected by the user; receiving user input selecting a high bandwidth telecommunications cable displayed over the map of the selected metropolitan area; receiving user input defining a buffer zone extending from the selected high bandwidth telecommunications cable based upon the linear distance from the selected high bandwidth telecommunications cable; displaying the buffer zone defined by the user over the map of the selected metropolitan area; receiving a user query regarding the contents of the buffer zone defined by the user; searching the electronic map of the metropolitan area and the electronic maps of the metropolitan area and the electronic maps of the high bandwidth telecommunications cable to answer the user query; and displaying the answer to the user query.