Impact of new technologies and network handling costs on the Metropolitan network structure

The current telecom network development with new services, new technologies, deregulation, etc., is evolving towards a more and more complex network with intricate traffic routing principles. With complexity follows increasing network handling costs. The ideal metropolitan network structure is strongly dependent on these increasing handling costs, and the application of new technologies. A number of network studies, where investments and handling costs are considered simultaneously, have been performed and arepresented in this paper. As a result of our analysis we propose the following ideal network structure: For the switched traffic, only tandem routing should be applied, ie, no direct routes between local exchanges. All switched trafflc is carried through tandem exchanges. For an effective handling of the transport resources, in particular non switched circuits, digital crossconnect systems are utilized. We also recommend a gradual change of the existing alternative routing strategy with direct routes, towards a true hub network architecture, applying tandem routing.