Multilevel Clustering in Point-To-Point Fiber Network Design

Bandwidth demand is ever-increasing and expected to keep increasing for at least 15 years. One of the main ways to provide such bandwidth is through installing fiber to the home (FTTH). We propose and test three metaheuristic approaches to extend a single-level FTTH network design heuristic to multiple levels. Each heuristic is evaluated on realistic graphs with over 30000 nodes and 800 terminals. We find that all metaheuristics provide a small but significant gain in quality at the cost of more running time. Since fiber installment can be expensive, the metaheuristic improvements can be a valuable extension for FTTH network designers.