Models for planning capacity expansion in local access telecommunications networks

The rapid progress of communications technology has created new opportunities for modeling and optimizing the design of local telecommunication systems. The complexity, diversity, and continuous evolution of these networks pose several modeling challenges. In this paper, the authors present an overview of the local telephone network environment, and discuss possible modeling approaches. In particular, they (i)discuss the engineering characteristics of the network, and introduce terminology that is commonly used in the communications industry and literature; (ii)describe a general local access network planning model and framework, and motivate different possible modeling assumptions; (iii)summarize various existing planning models in the context of this framework; and (iv)describe some new modeling approaches. The discussion in this paper is directed both to researchers interested in modeling local telecommunications systems and to planners interested in using such models. The present goal is to present relevant aspects of the engineering environment for local access telecommunication networks, and to discuss the relationship between engineering issues and the formulation of economic decision models. The authors indicate how changes in the underlying switching and transmission technology affect the modeling of the local telephone network. They also review various planning issues and discuss possible optimization approaches for treating them.