On the Design Problem of Cellular Wireless Networks

In this paper, we deal with the problem of how to design cellular networks in a cost-effective way. We first propose an optimization model that deals with selecting the location of the base station controllers (BSCs) and mobile service switching centers (MSCs), selecting their types, designing the network topology and selecting the link types. In order to find a “good” solution, we propose a tabu search algorithm. Numerical results show that the tabu search algorithm produces solutions close to a proposed lower bound.