| Article ID: | iaor20038 |
| Country: | United States |
| Volume: | 31 |
| Issue: | 5 |
| Start Page Number: | 4 |
| End Page Number: | 12 |
| Publication Date: | Sep 2001 |
| Journal: | Interfaces |
| Authors: | Dietz Dennis C., Shortle John F., Katz Paul A., Williamson Craig B., Koehler James R., Elcan Amie J. |
| Keywords: | programming: integer, internet |
Internet traffic causes much congestion on the public switched-telephone network. One way to relieve congestion is to transfer (or offload) Internet calls to a separate data network. We developed an integer programming model that optimizes the locations and capacities of the offload equipment to transfer data traffic at minimum cost. We employed an interactive tool based on the model to design and expand metropolitan data-offload networks. This saves Qwest an estimated $1.5 million over manual designs and reduces expected call blocking by 25 percent.