Editing Network planning and design (section)

==The role of forecasting==

During the process of Network Planning and Design, estimates are made of the expected [[traffic intensity]] and [[Network congestion|traffic load]] that the network must support.<ref name="[1]"/> If a network of a similar nature already exists, [[Traffic measurement (telecommunications)|traffic measurements]] of such a network can be used to calculate the exact traffic load.<ref name="[*]" /> If there are no similar networks, then the network planner must use [[telecommunications forecasting]] methods to estimate the expected traffic intensity.<ref name="[1]"/>

The forecasting process involves several steps:<ref name="[1]"/>

* Definition of a problem;
* Data acquisition;
* Choice of forecasting method;
* Analysis/Forecasting;
* Documentation and analysis of results.