Incremental FTTH deployment planning

Abstract

The use of optical fibres is favoured due to its desirable physical properties and especially for its high bandwidth transmission capability. The challenges faced in the design of fibre-based networks, specifically FTTH deployment, prompts the application of advanced mathematical models and computing technology. Single-period planning is the current design approach used by service providers. The shortcomings presented with this method have led to the creation of incremental planning. Declared benefits with this approach include eliminating post network deployment modifications, whereby, the unnecessary use of resources can be avoided. The primary objective of this research is to mathematically model the incremental FTTH planning problem and to evaluate the feasibility of the model by means of a number of case studies. A Mixed Integer Linear Programming formulation is proposed to model the incremental FTTH planning problem. Three case studies are conducted. The first, a 1-5-20 treenetwork (1-central office, 5-splitters and 20-optical network units), used for error detection throughout the formulation of the model. The second, a 1-5-20 street-network, used to determine whether the model can be implemented on a small-scale real-world street scenario, and the third, a 1-8-40 network, to determine the model's scalability. It was seen from the results that fewer splitters needed to be installed when using the incremental planning approach. This means that fewer trenches and fibres would need to be dug and placed respectively. The results obtained from Case Study 3 proved the model's scalability, indicating that model can solve large-scale incremental networks. From the results gained, it can be concluded that a Mixed Integer Linear Programming formulation can be used to optimally design an incremental FTTH network. This then proving the feasibility of the proposed mathematical model.