Product Overview:

DarkFiberPlanner is a network design and optimization tool that helps metropolitan area fiber network operators optimally allocate demands to Local Exchange Carrier (LEC) facilities or dark fiber resources that are available in the ground by adding electronics equipment at the ends. DarkFiberPlanner helps network planning engineers to rapidly plan, evaluate, and optimize the routing of CPE to CPE and CPE to POP network traffic such to minimize the total facilities cost. DarkFiberPlanner uses NetAdvantage's advanced mathematical optimization engine to identify optimal strategies for purchasing dark fiber resources, LEC facilities and DWDM equipment.

Benefits of DarkFiberPlanner:

The two main benefits of using the design tool are:

1. Productivity gains: It makes extremely good use of network engineers' and planners' time, allowing them to accomplish in minutes the design and cost estimation tasks that would previously have taken hours or days. The tool is easy to learn and easy to use. Interfaces are provided in Microsoft Excel as well as in our standard GUI as demonstrated in our MeshPlanner and RingPlanner software tools.

2. Solution quality and cost savings: Engineers using the network design tool consistently find designs that are 20%-30% less expensive than the previous best known designs. This is because the tool finds optimal DWDM hub location, traffic grooming, and traffic assignment strategies that can be difficult or impossible to identify based only on experience and intuition, or with less powerful planning tools.

How it Works:

The network design tool organizes traffic and demand data, facilities data, and cost data (e.g., fixed charges and per-month per DS0 mile charges from LEC tariff tables) into files that are used to automatically construct a mathematical optimization (large-scale integer programming) problem. Technical details of this step for several types of telecommunications networks can be found in our journal publications. The optimal solution is then translated into graphical displays and reports for the user. The main technical advantage of this approach, is its ability to solve large, real problems quickly to a very close approximation - even when exact solutions may be theoretically difficult or impossible to obtain in practical amounts of time. This technical capability is based on an integration of top expertise in traditional network optimization techniques with recent innovations in genetic algorithms and related "meta-heuristics" for solving practical telecommunications network optimization problems.

Critical Questions Answered by DarkFiberPlanner:

DarkFiberPlanner applies an approach that has been developed and applied successfully to solve real telecommunications network design problems. The planning tool generates answers to each of the following questions:

• How to optimally route traffic through a dark fiber network
• Where to place DWDM hubs, and which type of DWDM system to place at each hub
• Identify when it is appropriate to use LEC facilities to carry demands
• Determine how to allocate and route CPE to CPE and CPE to POP demands
• Evaluate the economic tradeoff between purchasing dark fiber and lighting it with DWDM equipment, versus carrying demand with LEC facilities

This tools has dramatically reduced planning cycle times and reduced costs of new and existing networks in over a dozen real applications.

To receive a demo of DarkFiberPlanner, please send us an e-mail at: demos@netadvantageinc.com