Optimal passive optical network planning under demand uncertainty

Abstract

As a result of ever-increasing demand for access level bandwidth, long deployment cycles and the popularisation of more economically viable Point-to-Multipoint (P2MP) networks, service providers are moving to extensively future-proof fibre technologies to connect consumers. Of these, the Passive Optical Network (PON) is the most prevalent. Though the optimal planning of these networks have been studied by a number of authors recently, the typical situation where consumer demand is uncertain has yet to be addressed. By including stochastic demand in an Integer Linear Program (ILP) model through the use of 2-stage stochastic programming, this can be accounted for. In this paper, a discrete approach is followed, optimising the model with the addition of consumer demand scenarios using real-world Geographic Information System (GIS) data. Results show a definitive decrease in deployment cost when any of the scenarios realise, especially when splitter capacity is restrictive