On optimal cell assignments in PCS networks

We address a problem of network design for personal communication services (PCS). The objective is to assign cells optimally to the switches in mobile as well as personal communications. Two types of costs are considered: the cost of handoffs between cells and the cost of cabling (or trunking) between a cell site and its associated switch. The problem is constrained by the call volume that each switch can handle. We adapt a powerful combinatorial search technique, called scatter search, to this optimization problem. We also develop a new optimization paradigm, called bounded scatter search, based on limited discrepancy search. Empirical results show promising performance with quality improvement.