ALGORITHM FOR OPTIMALLY LOCATING NETWORK ACCESS FACILITIES.

The authors have developed a heuristic algorithm for locating NAFs which, when integrated into an overall procedure, takes into account the impact of configurations of NAFs on the local access and backbone network designs. The algorithm allows for several heuristic techniques (ADD, DROP, MERGE, EXCHANGE) to be applied for a given problem, minimizing the occurrence of pathological cases of poor design which could occur from application of only a single heuristic. Sample problems are provided and comparisions of results to previously published works are made to demonstrate the author's claims of improvements in the effectiveness, efficiency, and overall flexibility associated with their algorithms.