Optimising development of telecommunications transmission networks

Abstract

As technological functionality advances, efficient design of telecommunications networks becomes increasingly difficult and complex. This thesis studies an optimisation approach to the problem of how to develop the transmission layer of existing and new telecommunications networks. In particular, following an in-depth study of Engineering aspects of the application, mathematical models are developed to cope with complexities resulting from recent technological advances. In addition to adapting available models and algorithms, original work is presented which takes advantage of special attributes of the application to produce a more effective formulation than the classical Multicommodity Network Flow formulation. Two particular problems are studied. The first problem involves minimising the cost of expanding capacity of an existing, growing network. The second problem involves optimising the design of a new SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy) network. The results of this study are very satisfactory, as they demonstrate the effectiveness of taking an Operations Research approach to an application which has traditionally more commonly been approached using Engineering techniques. Additionally, although telecommunications equipment vendors have developed planning tools which include optimising routing and capacity expansion of their products, a particular attribute of this thesis is that it documents methodologies which can be applied to general problems involving a multi-vendor network.