Patent Document ID: 7552462
Application ID: 12072372
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of connecting a plurality of nodes to a plurality of cards in a communication system, the method comprising: providing service to customers through cables connected to said nodes; determining using a computer a minimum number of said cards for controlling service connections to said nodes by contemporaneously evaluating the whole communication system for infrastructural arrangement inclusive of all cards and all nodes; modeling minimum margins for said cards using an optimization model that includes linear relationships among customer distribution data and a set of constraint conditions for said cards; and mathematically solving the model using linear, integer, and binary programming techniques, to determine a solution, whereby the number of customers served by each said card is similar for a simultaneous assignment of all of said nodes to all of said cards, wherein the number of said nodes being assigned to said cards are distributed to allocate traffic as evenly as possible, wherein said optimization model is represented by max [x*z] where x[i, c] is an assignment variable which equals 1 when a specific said node “i” is assigned to said card “c” or 0 otherwise; v[c]≧0, indicating the leftover capacity for households or margin present in said card c; w is a weight of 1 when the search reaches an optimal solution and remains 0 when it is searching for a feasible solution; Σx[i, c]=1: for all “i” when every said node must be assigned to one of said cards; Σx[i, c]≦SMAX: for all “c” so that said card can serve at most SMAX said nodes; Σx[i, c]*H[i]+y[c]=HMAX: for all “c” such that said card can serve at most HMAX households; y[c]≧z: for all “c” such that all of said cards must have at least a margin or unused capacity of z households; and z≧YMAX such that the minimum margin must be at least YMAX.