Bulletin 100, August 97 

 
 
Resource Management in Telecommunications:
Problems and directions
 
Ken TOTTON, British Telecom Laboratories, Ipswich, UK
 
Tuesday, September 23, 9.00 - 10.30
 
Abstract
 
This presentation focuses on telecommunications as a source of challenging problems for the operations research community. We specifically focus on  resource management problems and the role of optimisation algorithms. Three representative problems are introduced and motivated, namely,  communications bandwidth allocation,  work force scheduling and mobile channel assignment. Each of these problems is of key business significance to BT's daily operational effectiveness.
 
In each case the problem features and context and discussed, followed by approaches  investigated by researchers at BT Laboratories.  We report on the conclusions reached to date. Finally we draw some general lessons from these domains and give some insight into future directions of optimisation work. It is hoped that focusing on the problem characteristics and the approaches being adopted will stimulate further interdisciplinary discussion of novel solution techniques.
 
Biographical Sketch
 
For the last 6 years, Ken Totton has led the Data Mining Group within the Applied Research and Technology Department at BT Laboratories, Ipswich, UK.
 
A graduate of Cambridge University (MA Electrical Sciences) and Brunel University (MSc Microelectronics Systems), Ken has been with BT Laboratories for 17 years. His career has encompassed VLSI design and test, computer-aided design tools for VLSI self-test, artificial intelligence based diagnostic systems, and for the past eight years, intelligent systems and machine learning technology.
 
Since 1990, he has built up research and applications of data mining  for an extensive range of  BT internal units. This has given him a comprehensive knowledge of advanced applications of data mining in telecommunications, an understanding of the capabilities and limitations of existing techniques as applied to large scale 'real world' databases. He has also been instrumental in fostering relationships with UK academics interested in data mining. He has a substantial list of publications, and is a  member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers and a Chartered Engineer. Currently he is on secondment to BT's Industry Sector Sales, developing new propositions for BT Corporate customers.
 
Aged 38, Ken is married, has two sons, and lives in rural Suffolk. He enjoys aquatics, video, cycling and is an active member of his local church.

Ken TOTTON
Manager Data Mining /Intelligent Systems
British Telecom Laboratories
Ipswich, IP5 3RE, England
Tel: +44 1473 605 510
Fax: +44 1473 642 459
ken.totton@bt-sys.bt.co.uk
 
 


RETURN to previous page.