OPTIMAL DESIGN MODEL FOR A DISTRIBUTED HIERARCHICAL NETWORK WITH FIXED-CHARGED FACILITIES

We consider the design of a two-level telecommunication network having logical full-mesh/star topology, with the implementation of conduit systems taken together. The design problem is then viewed as consisting of three subproblems: locating hub facilities, placing a conduit network, and installing cables therein to configure the logical full-mesh/star network. Without partitioning into subproblems as done in the conventional approach, the whole problem is directly dealt with in a single integrated framework, inspired by some recent successes with the approach. We successfully formulate the problem as a variant of the classical multicommodity flow model for the fixed charge network design problem, aided by network augmentation, judicious commodity definition, and some flow restrictions. With our optimal model, we solve some randomly generated sample problems by using CPLEX MIP program. From the computational experiments, it seems that our model can be applied to the practical problem effectively.