eduction due to the OXC platform duplication is taken into account in the CE of the SP-R method. 8.6 Impact of ASON/GMPLS on Carriers OPEX It is completely evident that the introduction of the ASON/GMPLS model is a sort of revo- lution in the way in which the carrier network is conceived and managed. The rationale of this revolution is in the great need of big carriers of reducing the OPEX related to the network SO to prepare themselves to further network evolutions related to new services. Intuition tells us that if all the network is managed through an automated and unique control plane, OPEX should decrease with respect to a situation in which the network layers are managed separately and in managing the transport layer several manual opera- tions are needed. However, we also know that intuition is not always reliable, thus carriers have carried out several studies to quantify the OPEX advantages related to the introduction of the new network paradigm. This quantification is also needed since this technology step implies the investment of relevant capital needed to buy new equipment or to update the deployed equipment SO to be compatible with the new control plane. Besides equipment capitals, train- ing of network personnel to the new procedures, change of carriers organization to reflect the new network structure are all costs that have to be paid to implement the new control plane. A SO big project cannot be executed without a detailed business plan pointing out costs and benefits and describing the impact of the project on the carrier business. Among the studies that has been done to try to determine the benefits of ASON/GMPLS we will fol- low the work presented in Refs. [28,29] both in the method and in the results. In order to evaluate the OPEX expensed a model of the process implemented by the car- rier to manage the network has to be done. This process is composed not only of technical activities, like network maintenance and technical personnel training to use and maintain new equipment, but also by sa