Near optimal spare capacity planning in a mesh restorable network

An algorithm has been developed for the near-optimal assignment of spare capacity in a mesh-restorable network. Test results show that it performs well with respect to an exact linear programming formulation but is also suitable for inspection of the redundancy-restorability tradeoff over its whole domain and is suitable for operational use because it can be applied in an update mode to an existing network. The application of the algorithm to a 210 span study model of the Telecom Canada network in the year 2001 is described. Sensitivity studies showed the feasibility of joint access to a shared pool of network spares for both survivability and growth provisioning.< >