Affiliations: [a]
Capability Systems Centre, School of Engineering and Information Technology, University of New South Wales, Canberra, Australia
| [b]
School of Management, Sabanci University, Tuzla, Istanbul, Turkey
| [c]
Spears School of Business, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA
| [d]
Department of Computer Engineering, University of Yalova, Merkez, Yalova, Turkey
Correspondence:
[*]
Corresponding author. Hasan Hüseyin Turan, Capability Systems Centre, School of Engineering and Information
Technology, University of New South Wales, Canberra, Australia. Tel.: +61 2 6268 8369; E-mail: h.turan@adfa.edu.au.
Abstract: Network providers and bandwidth brokers offer a variety of pricing policies based on differentiated quality-of-service (QoS) levels and volume discount schemes. In this paper, a cost minimization problem under various volume discount policies offered during the bandwidth allocation is formulated and solved via a heuristic algorithm. The proposed heuristic algorithm is based on fuzzy set theory. It has the capability of solving complex bandwidth provider selection and task allocation problems in telecommunications by considering a variety of volume discount policies offered by providers. The efficacy of the algorithm is tested under various scenarios to find the optimal strategies for firms and to explore the suitability of the proposed approach.
