Patent ID: 8724799

Claim:
A method of determining a diverse set of substantially Pareto optimal operating points (Z) for spectrum management of a plurality (N) of digital subscriber lines in a communications network, the method comprising: determining optimization criteria (O i ) for the digital subscriber lines; determining crosstalk gains ( G i ) for the digital subscriber lines; determining an initial population (P i ) of operating points (x 1 , . . . , x Z ) where each of the operating points comprises importance ratings for each digital subscriber line of the plurality of digital subscriber lines; calculating new values of crosstalk and power spectrum densities (S) for the digital subscriber lines by executing spectrum balancing for each operating point until the optimization criteria are fulfilled; calculating a new population of operating points, by executing an evolutionary algorithm; and iteratively calculating new values of crosstalk and power spectrum densities and new populations of operating points until a predefined stopping criterion is fulfilled, resulting in the diverse set of substantially Pareto optimal operating points (Z).