An enhanced Ant Colony Optimization for FTTH access network design

Fiber deployment for the last mile of access networks is critical to provide bandwidth-intensive services such as high speed internet access, video on demand, online gaming, etc. However, to design a cost-effective FTTH access network, it requires the consideration of many factors, such as the number, positions of network components and routing of cables. Usually, the difficulty of producing consistent and cost-effective solutions is proportional to the size and complexity of the network. In the past, many approaches based on metaheuristics and mixed integer linear programming were applied to solve this kind of problem with different outcomes. In this paper, we focus on how Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) method can be employed to solve this problem effectively. Different network examples will be provided to illustrate optimal or near optimal solutions.