Exercise: planning GigaFibre’s network
GigaFibre’s first phase of development
There are two tasks in this exercise which are outlined below. First, consider the following scenario:
GigaFibre has won a government grant to provide high speed internet across the United Kingdom. GigaFibre is new to the market and currently owns no network connections but is seeking to connect the major cities in the UK. They wish to connect the cities as cheaply as possible, that is, using the least amount of fibre optic cable.
GigaFibre wants to connect London, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Cardiff, Grantham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Lancaster and Newcastle. The distances between each of the cities are summarised in the table Distances between the cities – accessible version (PDF)
Note: If the entry contains “-” then it is not possible to construct a direct link between the cities due to some geographic obstacle.
The city locations are depicted in the map below. Any pair of cities where it is possible to construct a fibre optic link are joined by a straight line.
Your tasks
- Identify where each of the cities are located in the map below. (Clue: London is bottom right!)
- Connect the cities together using the least amount of fibre optic cable using the data from the table.
- How many kilometres of cable will you need?
A full text description of the diagram is available below:
Connecting the cities – image full text description (PDF)
Introduction to Technology-Assisted Decision-Making
Introduction to Technology-Assisted Decision-Making
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