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Optimizing Network Designs for the World’s Largest Broadband Project

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Ferris

    (NBN Co, Sydney, New South Wales 2060, Australia)

  • Chris Forbes

    (Biarri Networks, Brisbane, Queensland 4105, Australia)

  • Joe Forbes

    (Biarri Networks, Melbourne, Victoria 3181, Australia)

  • Michael Forbes

    (Biarri Networks, Brisbane, Queensland 4064, Australia)

  • Paul Kennedy

    (Biarri Networks, Melbourne, Victoria 3181, Australia)

Abstract

The national broadband network (NBN) is the largest public infrastructure project undertaken in Australia, and NBN Co is the government-owned company responsible for building the network. By using operations research, NBN Co expects to avoid more than $AUD1.7 billion in unnecessary construction and design costs on this $AUD36 billion project. At the beginning of this 10-year project, NBN Co divided the country into more than 3,000 fiber-serving-area modules (FSAMs), each covering approximately 2,500 premises, and will design and construct one FSAM each day. NBN Co contracted with Biarri Networks, an Australian commercial mathematics company, to optimize the design task. To accomplish this, Biarri created a fiber-optic network design (FOND) software product based on a network-flow mixed-integer programming engine. This engine minimizes the cost of materials and labor for each FSAM, subject to a variety of constraints, and provides a solution in less than five minutes. To date, more than 650 FSAM designs have been completed using FOND. This has saved NBN Co an estimated $AUD325 million in avoided construction cost, and the planning time per FSAM has decreased from 145 to 16 days.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Ferris & Chris Forbes & Joe Forbes & Michael Forbes & Paul Kennedy, 2015. "Optimizing Network Designs for the World’s Largest Broadband Project," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 45(1), pages 83-97, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:45:y:2015:i:1:p:83-97
    DOI: 10.1287/inte.2014.0785
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Moon-gil Yoon & Young-ho Baek & Dong-wan Tcha, 1998. "Design of a distributed fiber transport network with hubbing topology," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 104(3), pages 510-520, February.
    2. M-G Yoon & J Current, 2008. "The hub location and network design problem with fixed and variable arc costs: formulation and dual-based solution heuristic," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 59(1), pages 80-89, January.
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    Cited by:

    1. Michael F. Gorman, 2021. "Contextual Complications in Analytical Modeling: When the Problem is Not the Problem," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 51(4), pages 245-261, July.

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