Loop Plant Modeling: The Feeder Allocation Process

An important part of an operating company outside plant engineer's job is to decide how best to use the spare capacity in the feeder network.1 This activity is called feeder administration. A major part of feeder administration is the allocation of spare feeder pairs. 1.1 The basic concept of allocation Allocation is the process of planning the use of spare feeder capacity (i.e., spare feeder cable pairs) along an entire feeder route. The purpose of allocation is to make the best, or most economical, use of both existing and future feeder facilities, and to enable the engineer to plan splicing configurations which will avoid complexity and reduce as much as possible the need for costly future rearrangements. The basic concept of allocation is to apportion the available spare pairs along the entire route, according to forecast growth rates. Doing so may 869 economically defer feeder relief which leads to higher feeder utilization (the fraction of the feeder actually in use). 1.2 Dual view of the feeder