Distributing customer location access links across network provider nodes during network planning

A computing-device implemented method, comprising:

• obtaining a list of customer locations proposed to be connected to a network;
• obtaining a list of locations of network nodes of the network that is capable of providing network service to the customer locations;
• identifying nearest network nodes to a first customer location of the customer locations;
• ranking the identified nearest network nodes in order from closest to farthest from the first customer location to produce a ranked list;
• stepping through each network node in the ranked list until a network node is identified which will not be placed in an overloaded state if the first customer location is connected to the network node;
• determining if a distance between the identified network node and the first customer location is less than a distance limit;
• and
• selecting the identified network node as the access node for the first customer location based on whether the distance is less than the distance limit.

A computing-device, comprising:

• means for obtaining a list of customer locations proposed to be connected to a network;
• means for obtaining a list of locations of network nodes of the network that is capable of providing network service to the customer locations;
• means for selecting a first customer location from the list of customer locations;
• means for identifying nearest network nodes to the first customer location;
• means for ranking the identified nearest network nodes to the first customer location in order from closest to farthest from the first customer location to produce a first ranked list;
• means for selecting a second customer location from the list of customer locations;
• means for identifying nearest network nodes to the second customer location;
• means for ranking the identified nearest network nodes to the second customer location in order from closest to farthest from the second customer location to produce a second ranked list;
• means for selectively stepping through each network node in the first ranked list and the second ranked list and comparing the respective network nodes in the first and second ranked lists to determine if the respective nodes are the same network node;
• and
• means for swapping the same network node with a network node at a top of the first ranked list and for swapping the same network node with a network node at a top of the second ranked list.