Abstract

This work is aimed at gaining insights about strategies for pricing and offering wavelength services of various protection classes over a shared-mesh restorable transport network. With shared-mesh protection the cost of providing survivability guarantees to different paths is less than the cost of duplication, and yet can be specific to each node-pair involved, making the problem of survivable network loading for maximum profit complex, especially with multiple survivability classes. We develop a model for optimal selection of the demand pairs to serve to maximize net economic return given a set of per-channel costs and a set available demands requiring different protection service classes and corresponding prices. A concept that emerges is that of “preferred demands,” which the model identifies and can guide service planning and market development efforts towards the most potentially profitable mix of routes and demand types with which to load the network. Three types of services, protected, unprotected and preemptible are considered. Using case studies, we show the applicability of the formulation and illustrate how business planners and marketing efforts can use it to compare strategies under different revenue and cost assumptions. A novel strategy identified with the model is to combine preemptible service offerings with protected services. Overall profit can be the same as with protected-only services at higher prices.

© 2005 Optical Society of America