Broadband access network planning strategies with techno-economic calculations are important topics, when optimal broadband network deployments are considered. This paper analyzes optimal deployment combination of digital subscriber line technologies (xDSL) and fiber to the home technologies (FTTx), following different user bandwidth demand scenarios. For this reason, optimal placement of remote digital subscriber line multiplexer (RDSLAM) is examined. Furthermore, the article also discusses the economy of investments, depending on certain investment threshold and the reach of different xDSL technologies. Finally, the difference between broadband network deployment in a characteristic urban and rural area in Republic of Slovenia, in terms of required optical cable dig length per household is shown. A tree structure network model of a traditional copper access network is introduced. A dynamic programming logic, with recursion as a basis of a tree structure examination and evaluation of optimal network elements placement is used. The tree structure network model considers several real network parameters (e.g.: copper cable lengths, user coordinates, node coordinates). The main input for the optimization is a local loop distance between each user and a candidate node for RDSLAM placement. Modelling of copper access networks with a tree structure makes new extensions in planning optimization of broadband access networks. Optimization of network elements placement has direct influence on efficiency and profitability of broadband access telecommunication networks.

User context and user location in particular play an important role in location-based services (LBS). The location can be determined by various positioning methods. These are typically evaluated with average positioning error or percentile values, which are not the most suitable metrics for evaluation of how a positioning method functions in the semantic space. Therefore, we propose a new method for evaluation of positioning accuracy in the semantic space. We focus on two types of semantic user locations that are widely available in urban areas: the street address and the categories of the surrounding points of interest (POIs). We demonstrate its use on ten different positioning methods: a standalone satellite navigation device, GPS module on a smartphone, two versions of Foursquare positioning service, Google positioning service, a positioning service of the local mobile operator, and four other possible variants of mobile operator-based positioning methods. The evaluation suggests that approach with the street addresses is more promising approach due to either sparse or unevenly distributed POIs. Furthermore, some of the positioning methods that are less accurate in Euclidean space, such as a combination of the GPS data with the mobile operator-based method that relies on the propagation models, performed comparably well in the semantic space as the methods that are using more accurate technologies, such as Google and Foursquare.

Real traffic flows are captured in various network environments and their statistical properties are analyzed. Based on real traffic flows, MWM (Multifractal Wavelet Model) and Poisson equivalent synthetic traffic flows are generated. Performance analysis of a SB (Synchronous Bulk) packet switch is joined with different types of traffic. Maximum throughput performance of the SB packet switch for various real traffic flows and appropriate MWM and Poisson equivalent synthetic traffic flows are evaluated by using discrete-event simulations. Different flow persistence, SF (Stretch Factor) and scheduling mechanisms are used in order to asses their influence on SB packet switch performance. Traffic asymmetry, either input or output based, has a major influence on SB packet switch performance. By increasing the level of asymmetry, maximum throughput values decrease considerably, especially if the ROT (Rotation) scheduling mechanism is applied. Traffic asymmetry also decreases the influence of the SF parameter on maximum switch throughput. As a general rule of thumb, SF values of no more then 5 must be used if asymmetrical traffic is switched. It is also advisable that OPF (Oldest Packet First) scheduling mechanism is used in such cases. The influence of burstiness and scaling of traffic flows turns out to be relatively insignificant for the SB packet switch maximum throughput results, if the OPF scheduling mechanism is used. Larger throughput discrepancies are detected, if ROT scheduling is used.