m this goal is as natural as staying alive and reproduction is in nature, but yet that goal can be easily forgotten when optimising some detail of the network. However, the importance of that fundamental goal cannot be overestimated since it provides the base line where the effort of optimising some detail is not optimising the profit but actually costing more than could possibly be gained from profit. It is easy to become blinded and focus on optimising some detail, but this overall effect should always be kept in mind. After this lengthy introduction to what really is important and worth optimising, the ways of optimis- ing revenue can be categorised roughly into two main streams: those optimising efforts that focus on maximising the revenues and those that minimise the costs (see Figure 3.76). In addition, the optimisation effort differs in the time line, i.e. when the optimum is to be reached. Some optimisation effort focuses on achieving as optimal a status as possible immediately, while some other optimisation effort looks two years into the future. The actions are naturally very different in such example cases. They could be called tactical optimisation and strategical optimisation - or perhaps they might be called short-sighted and long-sighted. However, that might be overstated since both have situations where they are applicable. Making decisions about when to reach the optimum falls to business management, but when talking about transmission optimisation here that can be ignored. In the following, the focus is put on two earlier mentioned main categories of optimisation and reference is made to describe only the expected effect on the time line. Transmission Network Planning and Optimisation Operators want to increase their profits Decrease costs Increase income e.g.Less leasing More traffic More subscribers Better quality Better QoE Figure 3.76 Overview of optimisation (QoE, quality of end user) Maximising revenues Those optimising efforts that seek to maximise revenues are based on the assumption tha