Telecommunications - central to our daily lives - continues to change dramatically. These changes are the result of technological advances, deregulation, the proliferation of broadband service offers, and the spectacular popularity of the Internet and wireless services. In such adynamic technological and economic environment, competition is increasing among service providers and among equipment manufacturers. Consequently, optimization of the planning process is becoming essential. Although telecommunications network planning has been tackled by the Operations Research community for some time, many fundamental problems remain challenging. Through its fourteen chapters, this book covers some new and some still challenging older problems which arise in the planning of telecommunication networks. Telecommunications Network Planning will benefit both telecommunications practitioners looking for efficient methods to solve their problems and operations researchers interested in telecommunications. The book examines network design and dimensioning problems; it explores Operation Research issues related to a new standard Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM); it overviews problems that arise when designing survivable SDH/SONET Networks; it considers some broadband network problems; and it concludes with three chapters on wireless and mobile networks. Leading area researchers have contributed their recent research on the telecommunications and network topics treated in the volume.

With the ever increasing growth of services and the corresponding demand for Quality of Service requirements that are placed on IP-based networks, the essential aspects of network planning will be critical in the coming years. A wide number of problems must be faced in order for the next generation of IP networks to meet their expected performance. With Performance Evaluation and Planning Methods for the Next Generation Internet, the editors have prepared a volume that outlines and illustrates these developing trends.

A number of the problems examined and analyzed in the book are:

-The design of IP networks and guaranteed performance

-Performances of virtual private networks

-Network design and reliability

-The issues of pricing, routing and the management of QoS

-Design problems arising from wireless networks

-Controlling network congestion

-New applications spawned from Internet use

-Several new models are introduced that will lead to better Internet performance

These are a few of the problem areas addressed in the book and only a selective example of some of the coming key areas in networks requiring performance evaluation and network planning.

GERAD celebrates this year its 25th anniversary. The Center was created in 1980 by a small group of professors and researchers of HEC Montreal, McGill University and of the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal. GERAD's activities achieved sufficient scope to justify its conversion in June 1988 into a Joint Research Centre of HEC Montreal, the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal and McGill University. In 1996, the U- versite du Quebec a Montreal joined these three institutions. GERAD has fifty members (professors), more than twenty research associates and post doctoral students and more than two hundreds master and Ph.D. students. GERAD is a multi-university center and a vital forum for the devel- ment of operations research. Its mission is defined around the following four complementarily objectives: * The original and expert contribution to all research fields in GERAD's area of expertise; * The dissemination of research results in the best scientific outlets as well as in the society in general; * The training of graduate students and post doctoral researchers; * The contribution to the economic community by solving important problems and providing transferable tools.

Telecommunications - central to our daily lives - continues to change dramatically. These changes are the result of technological advances, deregulation, the proliferation of broadband service offers, and the spectacular popularity of the Internet and wireless services. In such adynamic technological and economic environment, competition is increasing among service providers and among equipment manufacturers. Consequently, optimization of the planning process is becoming essential. Although telecommunications network planning has been tackled by the Operations Research community for some time, many fundamental problems remain challenging. Through its fourteen chapters, this book covers some new and some still challenging older problems which arise in the planning of telecommunication networks. Telecommunications Network Planning will benefit both telecommunications practitioners looking for efficient methods to solve their problems and operations researchers interested in telecommunications. The book examines network design and dimensioning problems; it explores Operation Research issues related to a new standard Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM); it overviews problems that arise when designing survivable SDH/SONET Networks; it considers some broadband network problems; and it concludes with three chapters on wireless and mobile networks. Leading area researchers have contributed their recent research on the telecommunications and network topics treated in the volume.