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Fibre optic strands lit in blue and amber

Case study · Compliance Reviewer · Tier 1 US telco · FTTH

Every install photo reviewed. First-time pass rates up five-fold.

A production pilot of Compliance Reviewer across live fiber-to-the-home builds in two US states, then audited field by field afterwards, so every number on this page is human-verified.

Client
Tier 1 US telecommunications operator
Sector
FTTH build & vendor management
Pilot partner
Drive Management Group (US)
Coverage
2 states · 4 inspection types
Developed by
KelTech IoE

At a glance

The pilot, in numbers.

23,000+photo checks reviewed across aerial, buried, no-access and frozen-ground installs
14,895expert-reviewed checks underpinning the audited figures on this page
Minutesfrom technician upload to a written verdict on every field
5×rise in first-time pass rate on the programme's worst-performing check type

The challenge

Thousands of evidence photos a week, and no way to check them all.

Every fiber drop generates a bundle of evidence photographs: buried depth, yard restoration, terminal tagging, signal readings and more. At programme scale that is thousands of images a week. Manual spot-checking reviews a fraction of them, slowly, and long after the crew has left site.

The cost of that gap is concrete. Defects surface weeks later as customer faults and repeat truck rolls. Disputes between operations and contractors become he-said-she-said, because nobody can put the evidence on the table. And the photos themselves cannot always be trusted: resubmitted duplicates and photos of screens slip through when nobody is looking closely.

The requirement was not more reviewers. It was review of every photo, within minutes, to a consistent standard, with a written reason for every verdict that a human can check and a contractor can challenge.

Aerial fibre plant on a congested utility pole, photographed by a technician at height
Real pilot evidence: aerial plant on a congested pole span

The approach

A trained QA agent for every inspection type, and a human hand on every override.

Numbered drop tag secured to a fibre drop cable at a terminal, as reviewed by the platform
PASSDrop tagConfidence 100%

Reasoning: A tag labelled 9425 is clearly attached to the drop cable via a zip-tie, and the association is visually clear.

Verdict as recorded by Compliance Reviewer during the pilot. Confirmed by expert review.

Compliance Reviewer put every submission, not a sample, through a panel of trained QA agents, one specialised for each inspection type: aerial, buried, no-access and frozen-ground. Each photo field received a pass or fail with a written reason, within minutes of upload.

People stayed in charge throughout. Uncertain verdicts route to a human reviewer, and contractors can dispute any verdict with the evidence attached. Nothing is a black box. Evidence is also screened for authenticity: duplicate photographs and screenshots are rejected.

Because verdicts land while the crew is still on site, a fail becomes a five-minute fix in the moment, not a callback, a repeat truck roll and a second visit next week.

The coaching cycle

Buried depth: from 15% to 74% first-time pass in four weeks.

One check type, buried drop depth, was the programme's worst performer: in the mid-teens of its checks were passing first time. Rather than escalating disputes, the operation used the platform itself to fix it.

Verdicts identified exactly which crews and which habits were driving the fails. Evidence-based coaching notices, generated in moments from real submissions, showing what was submitted next to what was expected, in the technician's own language where needed, went out to the crews concerned.

Four weeks later, the check type that had been failing five checks in six was passing three in four, first time. That is the loop the platform exists for: find the issue, show the evidence, coach the fix, watch the trend, inside one system, in under a month.

Weekly first-time pass rate, buried-depth check, one per submission. Post-audit figures corrected against adjudicated ground truth, not raw system output
Tape measure standing in turf with the 12-inch mark visible above the grass line
FAILBuried depthConfidence 93%

Reasoning: The tape appears to enter the ground around the 11-inch mark, with the 12-inch mark clearly above the grass line. This does not provide acceptable evidence of at least 12 inches of cover.

What was submitted. Verdict as recorded; the reviewer agreed.

Vertical tape measure in an open trench showing burial depth past the 12-inch mark
PASSBuried depthConfidence 93%

Reasoning: The direct field-camera photo shows a tape placed from the bottom of the excavation to the ground surface, with the surface reference at or above the 12-inch mark. This provides reasonable evidence of at least 12 inches of cover.

What was expected. The reference example used in the coaching notices.

Audited accuracy

Not self-reported. Audited.

One unit runs through every figure below. A job has one or more inspections; an inspection has a set of required photo fields; each field receives exactly one verdict, pass or fail. One verdict on one field is one check. After the pilot, every disputed check was individually re-examined against the original photographs, and confirmations were verified by stratified sampling: 14,895 expert-reviewed checks, every conclusion human-confirmed.

98.8% of checks agree with the corrected review record. How often does the automated verdict match what expert review finally concluded? Agreement · audited
97.8% of checks that failed genuinely deserved to fail. When Compliance Reviewer rejects a field, it is right 49 times out of 50. Precision · audited
97.5% of checks on compliant work were correctly passed, keeping contractor friction and needless disputes low. Specificity · audited
94.7% of checks on genuinely defective work were caught before it became a customer fault or a warranty argument. Sensitivity · audited

The audit also examined the disputes themselves: fewer than one in ten challenges to a verdict identified a genuine error by the QA agents.

The payoff

What the operation gained.

01

For technicians

  • Instant answers. A verdict with a written reason in minutes: check your own work and fix issues before leaving site.
  • No wasted journeys. Catching a fail on-site replaces the drive home, the callback and the next-day repeat visit.
  • Fair, evidence-based coaching. Notices show the technician's actual submission alongside what good looks like, in other languages where crews need them.

02

For inspectors and supervisors

  • Hours of windshield time back. Submissions are reviewed on screen with the evidence attached; site visits become the exception, with the fuel and vehicle savings to match.
  • 100% coverage. Every field of every submission reviewed. No more sampling and hoping.

03

For the programme

  • Vendor scorecards from real data. Contractor performance ranked on actual verdict history, so renewal and allocation conversations are grounded in evidence, not anecdotes.
  • Disputes with receipts. Every verdict carries its reason and its photograph; most disagreements resolve on sight.
  • Authenticity guarantees. Duplicate and screenshot submissions rejected, so the evidence base stays trustworthy.
  • Fast to stand up. New programmes provision in days: QA agents are configured to the operator's own checklists and pass rules per inspection type, with no lengthy integration project.
Aerial fibre distribution terminal with identification placard above a rooftop
Aerial terminal evidence from the pilot archive

In their words

From the partner who commissioned the pilot.

Drive Management Group's mission is to drive performance results. We firmly believe we can't build tomorrow's networks using yesterday's methods. When we commissioned our partner, KelTech IoE, to build Compliance Reviewer agents specific for our program, we weren't looking for another audit tool. We wanted to catch network-impacting quality issues before they became repeat truck rolls, missed commitments, lost revenue, and frustrated customers.

Compliance Reviewer's dual QA-agent-and-human review scores every photo against our Bell system standards checklist in near real time, so we know within minutes whether a job meets standard or needs corrective action. Quality stopped being something we checked after the fact and became part of the workflow itself. Within weeks, the first-time pass rate on our worst-performing check rose five-fold. That's the difference between hoping the work is right and knowing it is.

Joshua Stombaugh Director of Operations, Drive Management Group

About Drive Management Group

This pilot was commissioned by Drive Management Group (DMG), KelTech IoE's partner in the United States, on a live FTTH programme they manage for a Tier 1 US telecommunications operator. The operator and its contractors remain anonymous by agreement.

  • Every statistic derives from the independently adjudicated pilot audit (September 2026).
  • Field photographs are genuine pilot evidence, cropped to remove location data.
  • Testimonial reproduced verbatim as supplied by DMG.

Compliance Reviewer · a KelTech IoE platform · useloc.com
Tier 1 US telco FTTH pilot with Drive Management Group. All statistics from the independently adjudicated pilot audit, September 2026.
Testimonial reproduced verbatim as supplied by Drive Management Group.

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