ome pricing is based on one rate for cost of reaching the backbone and another rate for transport on the backbone. The implications of this difference are discussed in Sec. 35.3. Different vendors have different plans for leasing transport. It is important to com- pare rates among vendors and to make sure that the same rate rules are being applied in comparison. It may be as simple as one vendor including sales and excise taxes in the rate, but it may be more complicated, with one vendor offering a better rate than another but for a less reliable technology. Transport can be priced in bundles. We get a good rate if we buy 100 DS-1 links or if we sign a long-term transport contract. We rely on separable pricing for our heuristic optimization, that the price of one transport link did not depend on using another. In the face of vendors bundling services and requiring long-term service contracts, we Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website. Backhaul Planning Planning for CDMA Capacity have to be careful that we are really getting the service and prices we put into the com- putational model. Ideally, engineers who are aware of alternative backhaul technolo- gies could be consulted in advance of contract negotiations. Bringing this level of ex- pertise to the table may make it possible to negotiate contracts with flexibility that will allow reduced costs within the contract but still give the service provider options out- side the contract for parts of the network backhaul. We could lease dark fiber and provide our own terminal equipment. Or we could use point-to-point microwave links. These options involve paying more in initial cost to save some or all of the recurring expenses down the line. The value of such a tradeoff depends on the time value of money as seen by the financial planners. From the point of view of backhaul planners trying