Optimum acceptability of telecommunications networks: a multi-criteria approach

This paper proposes an aggregated index of acceptability that can establish a “ranking” of the possible candidate hub cities in the design of a telecommunications network. The main advantages of the aggregated index proposed are the following: (a) it takes into account several wide-ranging design criteria, (b) its formulation is given by a lineal mathematical expression, (c) the procedure for calculating the index is very simple, and (d) the candidate hubs can be ranked differently depending on the aggregation structure of the criteria involved. Taking this considerations, the application of the proposed methodology can supplement the information supplied by more sophisticated multicriteria approaches based generally upon 0/1 goal programming. The theory presented is illustrated using a case study taken from the literature.