DESIGN OF PRIVATE BACKBONE NETWORKS .1. TIME-VARYING TRAFFIC

Technological advances, special communication needs and potential cost advantages are prompting an increasing number of businesses to config ure private communication networks, bypassing the public networks to v arying degrees. In view of the high prices of leasing capacity, this p aper develops a model for determining transmission line capacity in pr ivate backbone networks, such that multi busy-hour point-to-point circ uit requirements can be met at low cost. Recent technology has develop ed backbone nodal elements, such as Networking Multiplexers/Digital Cr oss Connect Systems, which can be easily reconfigured to reroute traff ic so as to take advantage of noncoincidence of demand among communica ting node pairs across different busy-hours. A multi-period cost model is formulated. A 3-phase heuristic, based on Benders decomposition, i s developed to determine the line capacities jointly with circuit rout ing to satisfy the time varying circuit requirements at low cost. Comp utational results on practical sized backbone private networks are sho wn and solution quality is established by comparison with a lower boun d obtained from an LP relaxation of the model.