The Cost of Missing the ArcGIS Utility Network Deadline

Miss the 2026 ArcGIS Utility Network Deadline, and You Pay the Price

Published: September 29, 2025

By January 2026, Esri will officially retire its decades-old Geometric Network model.

...that means every utility – electric, gas, water, and telecom – must migrate to the modern ArcGIS Utility Network (UN) to remain on supported GIS software. Missing this deadline isn’t just a matter of running unsupported software; it poses serious operational and financial risks for utilities.

The High Cost of Inaction

Failing to act now is a business risk with real financial consequences. Consider what happens if you stick with the legacy system:

• Skyrocketing O&M costs: Legacy systems demand more manual workarounds and maintenance as they age, driving up operational expenses. Outdated software often lacks vendor support, so IT teams spend valuable hours on ad-hoc fixes and patches. In fact, older “end-of-life” systems end up incurring higher maintenance costs, more frequent downtime, and workarounds that waste employee time – all of which inflate your Operations & Maintenance budget.

• Regulatory fines: An unsupported GIS makes it harder to maintain accurate, auditable records, putting your utility at risk of compliance violations. Many regulatory frameworks require up-to-date and secure systems; using obsolete models can lead to audit failures and hefty fines. In other words, outdated GIS data or reporting can expose you to penalties that far outweigh the cost of upgrading.

• Customer dissatisfaction: Aging network models can slow down outage restoration and undermine service quality. Poor data quality has a huge impact on restoration times after outages – crews may struggle to pinpoint network issues, leading to longer outages and delayed communications. Additionally, legacy processes can result in billing mistakes or poor service transparency. Every prolonged outage and error erodes customer trust in your utility.

In short, utilities that miss the transition deadline will end up pouring more resources into keeping old systems on life support than it would cost to invest in a modern, resilient UN migration. Delaying the move can delay projects by months, inflate costs, and even compromise network performance – a recipe for falling behind both financially and operationally.

The ROI of Acting Now

Migrating early isn’t only about avoiding negatives; it’s about capturing positives. An on-time (or ahead-of-time) Utility Network migration yields significant return on investment. Utilities that start preparing now see immediate and long-term benefits, including:

1. Lower migration costs – Fixing data quality issues before the migration saves time and money. By cleaning up your GIS data upfront, you prevent expensive surprises during the conversion. For example, a thorough UN readiness assessment can uncover schema mismatches or geometry errors in advance, so you can correct them at the source rather than in crisis mode. Automation tools (like 1Spatial’s UN Readiness App) quickly flag these issues, reducing costly remediation and manual rework later on.

2. Faster time-to-value – Early movers complete the transition more quickly and start reaping benefits sooner. For instance, Holland Board of Public Works in Michigan completed their ArcGIS Utility Network migration in roughly half the time of a traditional approach. This accelerated timeline not only cut project labor costs but also meant the utility could leverage the new network’s capabilities much earlier, speeding up benefits like improved outage management and more efficient workflows.

3. Operational efficiency – The Utility Network brings built-in data integrity rules and advanced analytics that streamline operations. The UN model enforces correctness (through network rules) and unlocks capabilities like subnetwork management and real-time network tracing. Engineers and GIS analysts spend far less time chasing errors or manually stitching together network information, and more time optimizing the system. Better data and tools lead to faster isolation of outages, smarter asset maintenance, and even extended asset life. In fact, some utilities have seen service disruptions drop after addressing data quality issues during migration – for example, United Utilities in the UK slashed customer service disruptions by proactively fixing data issues as part of their UN upgrade.

4. Long-term compliance and resilience – By embedding strong data governance into your UN migration, you ensure sustained compliance and data integrity going forward. The Utility Network’s strict rules (and the process of continuously validating your data against them) mean you won’t slip back into poor data habits. Best practices include validating data at every step – before, during, and after migration – to catch issues early. Using tools like a UN Validation App, utilities can certify that the post-migration data meets all of Esri’s UN rules, giving confidence that the new network is clean and correct. This proactive, governance-focused approach prevents the cycle of emergency fixes. You’re essentially “baking in” quality and resilience, so the system stays reliable and compliant for the long run without constant heroic efforts.

Why 1Spatial?

Utilities cannot afford a risky, consultant-heavy approach to this critical migration. That’s why many leading utilities choose 1Spatial as their ArcGIS Utility Network partner. 1Spatial’s Utility Network App Suite delivers an automation-first, SaaS-based solution that has proven results. It reduces manual effort and error, accelerating the migration by up to 50% in real projects. The suite includes:

• UN Readiness App – Assess and fix your data quality before migration begins. This tool evaluates your current network data against the UN requirements, quickly identifying issues (e.g. missing attributes, geometric errors, schema misalignments) so you can resolve them proactively. By starting with clean data, you avoid costly delays later.

• UN Migration App – Transform and load your legacy network data into the new Utility Network model with an iterative, controlled process. This solution maps your existing schema to the UN schema and allows for staged, step-by-step migration. The iterative approach means you can convert a portion, validate it, fix any issues, then repeat – greatly reducing risk compared to a “big bang” migration. It ensures you maintain oversight and confidence at each phase.

• UN Validation App – Certify that your post-migration data meets all of Esri’s Utility Network rules and quality standards. After the data is migrated, this tool checks the network against hundreds of built-in rules (connectivity, containment, attribution, etc.) to ensure nothing is out of place. It guarantees a clean transition with no nasty surprises in production, so your new UN database is immediately reliable and compliant.

By automating large parts of the process and enforcing data standards at every step, 1Spatial’s tools dramatically cut the effort and risk of Utility Network migration. In fact, utilities have reported up to 50% reduction in migration time and effort with 1Spatial’s approach. That translates to significant savings in project cost and a faster payoff from your investment.

The Cost of Waiting

On the flip side, delaying your move to the Utility Network only makes things more difficult and expensive down the road. If you procrastinate, you risk the following:

• Higher emergency costs: The longer you wait, the more your legacy data quality degrades. Ultimately, if you have to migrate under time pressure (with the old system nearing end-of-life), you’ll pay a premium for rushed remediation and “band-aid” fixes. Many utilities that neglect data cleanup upfront find themselves in reactive mode later, scrambling to fix errors that could have been prevented cheaply with a proactive approach. In a last-minute crunch, expect to spend double the effort (and budget) to get your data ready.

• Extended project timelines: Unaddressed problems can greatly extend your eventual migration timeline. Small data issues compound into big delays during conversion; missing or incorrect asset data can delay a UN migration by months as teams troubleshoot and rework the dataset. A project that could take a year in steady planning might stretch into multiple years if started late with poor data, increasing labor costs and management headaches.

• Eroding customer trust: Clinging to outdated systems in the interim can lead to service disruptions that damage your reputation. Legacy networks are brittle; they have higher failure rates and are harder to analyze, which increases the risk of outages and slowdowns in response. Each prolonged outage or incident caused by system limitations will frustrate customers. Likewise, if your tools can’t provide transparent, up-to-date information (e.g. outage maps or accurate bills), customers will grow dissatisfied. In short, waiting too long not only hurts internal efficiency but also public perception of your service reliability.

Simply put: the later you start, the higher the bill. Every month of delay raises the eventual cost and difficulty of migration, while your utility falls further behind modern standards.

Take Action Now

The 2026 deadline is closer than it seems, and now is the time to prepare. Utilities that act soon will not only avoid fines and O&M bloat … they can turn compliance into a competitive advantage. By moving to the ArcGIS Utility Network on your own schedule (not in a rushed panic), you position your organization to deliver more reliable service at lower cost. In fact, those that embrace the Utility Network early will be positioned to lead in the era of digital infrastructure, whereas laggards risk getting outpaced and outperformed by modernized peers.

Ready to streamline your UN migration? Check out our datasheet and see exactly where your risks (and opportunities) lie. By taking action now, you can future-proof your utility’s network, save money, and build lasting trust with regulators and customers alike. Don’t wait until it’s too late. The best time to start your Utility Network migration is now. Book your UN Readiness Assessment today.