Hybrid fiber co-axial community antenna TV network design with variable capacity optical network units

Recent changes in telecommunication regulations and changing market forces are making the market for broadband network services to the home an extremely lucrative and competitive area. Of the many competing technologies for such broadband services, major CATV companies are banking heavily on Hybrid Fiber Co-axial (HFC) networks as a delivery mechanism. In this paper we provide a mathematical model for the design of HFC networks. We extend the model developed by Pirkul and Gupta to allow the location of Optical Network Units of different capacities. Analysis of the model shows that it belongs to the NP-Complete class of problems. We provide a heuristic solution procedure for the design task. Computational testing of our procedure demonstrates that it is applicable for the design of relatively large networks and provides solutions that are of reasonably good quality.