Carriers often issue a network design exercise as part of a Request for Information (RFI) or a Request for Proposal (RFP). System vendors perform the network designs using their respective equipment to provide carriers with information regarding architecture, technology, and pricing. To streamline the design process and to enable carriers to glean relevant information when comparing results, some suggestions to assist carriers in preparing a design exercise are provided here.

1. Provide all data (e.g., nodes, links, demands) in text files or in spreadsheets. Do not require any manual entry of data by the vendors, as this is likely to lead to errors.

2. Provide the latitude/longitudes of the network nodes. Most design tools can use this information to position nodes on the screen, to help visualize the design.

3. If demand sets for multiple time periods are provided, specify whether the demand sets are incremental or cumulative (e.g., are the demands in set #2 added to the demands that already exist from set #1, or does set #2 represent all of the demands). Additionally, when adding demands to the network in subsequent time periods, specify whether the demands already in the network need to be kept fixed, or whether an optimization can be performed over all of the demands.

4. If the design exercise is for extended-reach technology, then fiber span information should be provided, including fiber type, span distances, and span losses. (Information such as PMD can be helpful as well, if available.)

5. Ideally, there would...