Advanced Call Scheduling for Testing a Telecommunications Network

This paper describes an advanced scheduling system and method for generating large volumes of calls to be used for testing a telecommunications network. The system is capable of preparing large-scale and complex network tests by viewing the task as a scheduling problem. The various requirements of the scheduling problem are analysed and represented as constraints or optimisation criteria. A fast heuristic method is proposed for solving the problem. The approach is based on a greedy algorithm for constructing solutions and it incorporates limited backtracking and dynamic value-ordering heuristics. The algorithm and system are currently being used for call charge verification in BT's PSTN and CSP networks.