This edited book serves as a companion volume to the Seventh INFORMS Telecommunications Conference held in Boca Raton, Florida, March 7-10, 2004. The 18 papers in this book were carefully selected after a thorough re view process. The research presented within these articles focuses on the latest methodological developments in three key areas—pricing of telecommunica tions services, network design, and resource allocation—that are most relevant to current telecommunications planning. With the global deregulation of the telecommunications industry, effective pricing and revenue management, as well as an understanding of competi tive pressures are key factors that will improve revenue in telecommunica tions companies. Chapters 1-5 address these topics by focusing on pricing of telecommunications services. They present some novel ideas related to pricing (including auction-based pricing of network bandwidth) and modeling compe tition in the industry. The successful telecommunications companies of the future will likely be the ones that can minimize their costs while meeting customer expectations. In this context the optimal design/provisioning of telecommunication networks plays an important role. Chapters 6-12 address these topics by focusing on net work design for a wide range of technologies including SONET, SDH, WDM, and MPLS. They include the latest research developments related to the mod eling and solving of network design problems. Day-to-day management/control of telecommunications networks is depen dent upon the optimal allocation of resources. Chapters 13-18 provide insight ful solutions to several intriguing resource allocation problems.

Telecommunications Network Design And Management represents the state-of-the-art of applying operations research techniques and solutions across a broad spectrum of telecommunications problems and implementation issues. -The first three chapters of the book deal with the design of wireless networks, including UMTS and Ad-Hoc networks. -Chapters 4-6 deal with the optimal design of telecommunications networks. Techniques used for network design range from genetic algorithms to combinatorial optimization heuristics. -Chapters 7-10 analyze traffic flow in telecommunications networks, focusing on optimizing traffic load distribution and the scheduling of switches under multi-media streams and heavy traffic. -Chapters 11-14 deal with telecommunications network management, examining bandwidth provisioning, admission control, queue management, dynamic routing, and feedback regulation in order to ensure that the network performance is optimized. -Chapters 15-16 deal with the construction of topologies and allocation of bandwidth to ensure quality-of-service.

"This book provides original, in-depth, and innovative articles on telecommunications policy, management, and business applications"--Provided by publisher.

Networks in Telecommunications addresses fundamental issues in discussions of regulatory policy by offering an integrated framework for understanding the economics and law of networks. It extends theories on network design associated with the mathematics of graph theory, which provides insights into the complex, systemic interrelationship between network components. It also applies the principles of transaction cost economics to analyze decisions about the appropriate boundaries of proprietary network architecture. The book introduces network theory to the study of the economics and law of telecommunications. The discussion opens up the black box of the cost function in telecommunications. The analysis also goes beyond the 'network externalities' approach that focuses primarily on the size of networks. The book highlights the effects of network architecture and the tradeoffs inherent in network design.

TMN is a network monitoring system that allows telecommunications providers to monitor every element of their networks. While TMN is a powerful tool for controlling telecommunication networks, it is difficult to manage. This is the book that helps telecommunications managers effectively use TMN.

This comprehensive handbook brings together experts who use optimization to solve problems that arise in telecommunications. It is the first book to cover in detail the field of optimization in telecommunications. Recent optimization developments that are frequently applied to telecommunications are covered. The spectrum of topics covered includes planning and design of telecommunication networks, routing, network protection, grooming, restoration, wireless communications, network location and assignment problems, Internet protocol, World Wide Web, and stochastic issues in telecommunications. The book’s objective is to provide a reference tool for the increasing number of scientists and engineers in telecommunications who depend upon optimization.

No previous knowledge of data communications and related fields is required for understanding this text. It begins with the basic components of telephone and computer networks and their interaction, centralized and distributive processing networks, Local Area Networks (LANs), Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs), Wide Area Networks (WANs), the International Standards Organization (OSI) Management Model, network devices that operate at different layers of the OSI model, and the IEEE 802 Standards. This text also introduces several protocols including X.25, TCP/IP, IPX/SPX, NetBEUI, AppleTalk, and DNA. The physical topologies, bus, star, ring, and mesh are discussed, and the ARCNet, Ethernet, Token Ring, and Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) are described in detail. Wiring types and network adapters are well covered, and a detailed discussion on wired and wireless transmissions including Bluetooth and Wi-Fi is included. An entire chapter is devoted to the various types of networks that one can select and use for his needs, the hardware and software required, and tasks such as security and safeguarding data from internal and external disasters that the network administrator must perform to maintain the network(s) he is responsible for. Two chapters serve as introductions to the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and Remote Monitoring (RMON). This text includes also five appendices with very useful information on how computers use numbers to condition and distribute data from source to destination, and a design example to find the optimum path for connecting distant facilities. Each chapter includes True-False, Multiple-Choice, and problems to test the reader's understanding. Answers are also provided.