Patent ID: 8082345

Claim:
A method of selecting a route for a telecommunications circuit comprising: storing a database comprising data representative of a network model, the data comprising: data representative of network nodes of the network; data representative of existing connections between nodes; and data representative of potential connections between nodes, the data specifying nodes which may be connected in the network but which are currently not connected; the method further comprising storing, in the database, first model data representing a first model of the network, the first model data defining network nodes and connections between network nodes in the network; receiving, by a computer, second model data representing a second model of the network, the second model data defining a plurality of node groups; searching, by the computer, the data representative of existing connections and the data representative of potential connections in the network model to determine a route through the network from a start node to an end node; identifying, by the computer, a plurality of routes between a start node group and an end node group, wherein each of the start node group and the end node group represent a plurality of network nodes of the first model of the network; selecting one of the plurality of identified routes; calculating a score for each of the plurality of identified routes; outputting the identified routes in accordance with the calculated scores; storing a plurality of scoring rules; receiving information specifying one of the plurality of scoring rules; and calculating the calculated scores using the specified scoring rule.