Patent ID: 8351374

Claim:
A method for determining an expenditure for a portion of a network, comprising: partitioning the portion of the network into at least one geographical region according to at least one partitioning parameter associated with each of a plurality of base stations located within the geographical region; defining at least one cluster within each of the at least one region, the at least one cluster defined in a manner tending to maximize a base station density of each of the at least one cluster; determining an aggregating node configuration associated with an aggregating node, the aggregating node configuration determined using the base station density of one of the at least one cluster associated with the aggregating node; determining a deaggregating node configuration associated with a deaggregating node, the deaggregating node configuration determined using the aggregating node configuration; and determining the expenditure using the base station density associated with each of the at least one cluster.