Efficient clustering of cabinets at FttCab

Abstract

At this moment consumers want an internet connection with 20-50 Mb/s speed and around 100 Mb/s in the near future. Rolling out Fibre to the Curb networks quickly will be the only way for telecom operators in some countries to compete with cable tv operators. This requires a fibre connection to the cabinets. When the telecom operator wants to connect the cabinets in a ring structure, he has to decide how to divide cabinets over a number of circuits, taking into account a maximum number of customers per circuit. This we call the cabinet clustering problem. In this paper we formulate this problem, present the heuristic approch we developed and show the results of our extensive testing that shows the method is accurate and fast. Finally we demonstrate the method on a real life case. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.