Access network design with capacity-dependent costs

This article adresses the topological design problem of access networks. The topology of such networks is often designed assuming capacity-independent costs for the links and neglecting other equipment costs. However, with the massive deployment of optical fiber in all western countries, the cost of leasing transmission lines becomes cheaper and cheaper, and equipment costs are now a significant fraction of the total cost when designing a network. The main contribution of this paper is to integrate the cost of the equipements in the topological design of access networks. An exact algorithm and two heuristics are proposed to solve this problem.