智能电表集中抄表系统入户子系统英文文献
外文原文
Performance in planning — smart systems for the access network
D E Asumu and J Mellis
Improvements in system technologies continue apace — with new developments in software methods arguably outstripping even the breakneck progress in hardware power described by ‘Moore’s Law’. The software developments are timely, since they offer solutions to the urgent problems of increasing customer demands, complexity of network technologies, and more competitive markets. The increasing availability of cheap computing power, with developments in object orientation and artificial intelligence, offer the possibility of a more holistic approach to network performance planning and management. The most fundamental aspects of network performance (functionality, reliability, and cost) can now feasibly be considered simultaneously and interactively. Common, comprehensive network models are within sight, which could be utilised by network planners, installers, repair staff, marketeers and at point-of-sale. The resulting improvements in productivity and service quality could be immense. Specific examples of ‘intelligent’ access network planning tools, produced using rapid application development technmiques within BT, are described to illustrate their potential.
1. Introduction
The pressures on telecommunications service providers are now well recognised, and changes in the technologies and markets are increasingly dynamic. Market liberalisation is well-advanced in the USA and Europe, and is being implemented almost everywhere else. Customer expectations of service quality, availability, and value are ever-increasing [1]. Growth in Internet and data transfer demand has increased stress on core network capacities, challenged access network capabilities, and created new niches for market entrants. Continued technological progress, particularly in semiconductor integrated chip development, is creating exciting opportunities to provide new broadband and multimedia services. This technological trend, in fact, is the root cause of most of the opportunities(and problems) confronting the converging telecommunications and information technology industries.
It is easy to forget, but the prediction made in 1968 by Gordon Moore continues to apply — an approximate doubling of semiconductor chip density every 12—18 months. From ‘Moore’s Law’ flows the annual increase in personal computer (PC) processing speed and memory we have grown to expect, and also such developments as adaptive terminal equipment, crucial to the asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) systems which can deliver video bandwidths to residential customers over ordinary telephone wires. Optical fibre, co-axial cable and radio technologies compete for the main market segments, and new possibilities such as Internet telephony are challenging traditional market models. If the opportunities created by these changes are huge, then so are the corresponding problems of planning and managing the increasingly complex networks required. Fortunately advances in software engineering methodologies have at least matched the spectacular developments in hardware — object orientation, rapid application development (RAD) techniques, distributed database management methods, and expert systems offer the possibility to plan and manage future complex networks, and markets, more efficiently than the relatively simple networks of the past.
2. Network performance and planning — processes and opportunities
Currently, a number of fundamental changes are affecting how the access network is planned and new services subsequently delivered at the strategic, tactical and detailed levels. Firstly, both the services offered and the demand profile for these services have seen a dramatic change in terms of differentiation and segmentation. Secondly, the deregulation of the telecommunications market within the UK has introduced fierce competition from other network operators, with over 150 licences being issued to new operators since 1991. Thirdly, BT has continued to extend its business activity into global markets primarily through collaborative joint ventures, often facing near-to-medium term deployment scenarios quite different from those in the UK. Finally, new technology continues to extend the performance envelope of the access network, making it possible to plan for and to deliver a wider range of ‘datawave’ and broadband services. At the front end of each of these diverse activities is the planning process. It is at this point that the future risk to any network infrastructure build proposals can be minimised. Quite simply, getting it wrong at this stage has a massive impact on subsequent return on investment and hence continued profitability. Therefore, at the planning phase of the access network, a number of key questions need to be addressed in order to meet time and cost targets:
• where investment should be made,
• the impact of competition,
• emergence of new service offerings together with any constraints on the underlying service provisioning platform,
• what technology and quantities of plant should be deployed,
• in what time periods the deployment should be made
These are complex issues, and often a number of techno-economic scenarios must be considered. Additionally, these decisions must often be made on a continuous basis to tight deadlines. These factors naturally lead to the need for tools that will facilitate the planning process through at least partial automation. This paper will describe work which has addressed the issues of access network planning at the strategic, tactical and detailed levels. While dealing broadly with many aspects of the planning process, the paper will focus on a specific example of how innovative methods from the field of artificial 867
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