Communications network planning in the evolving information age

Communications networks are undergoing major changes in equipment technologies, network architectures, and service offerings. These changes reflect the new capabilities of the evolving information age: high bandwidth technologies, flexible and controllable networks utilizing advanced database and signaling systems, and intelligent network elements. Planning these new communications networks presents a major challenge. However, information age technologies also allow the design of efficient and flexible processes and systems to plan new modern networks. In fact, these new database oriented, intelligent planning systems must evolve in synchronism with the new information age communications networks. In the long term, as the networks increase in flexibility and intelligence, the networks themselves can take over many of the responsibilities of network planning and administration, leaving planners to study business strategies and new network architectures and services. In any event, planning decisions, whether made by the network or the planner, will be based on large amounts of information that are efficiently organized and quickly processed by the integrated network and operations support systems.