1. A method to simulate a communication network in a planning phase with a plurality of nodes in a Smart Grid electricity network, comprising a processor performing the steps: importing geographical terrain data and a topology of the communication network that determines a plurality of electrical devices in the Smart Grid electricity network as sources for traffic over the communication network in the planning phase by setting one or more parameters associated with each of the sources of traffic for each of a plurality of communication protocols, the one or more parameters including at least a packet size and a transmit time, the plurality of electrical devices being selected from the group performing Smart Grid applications consisting of delivery management and optimization, demand management and optimization and asset management and optimization; setting transmit times for the one or more sources of traffic for each of the plurality of communication protocols by selecting one or more parameters including at least a simulation time and a delay; creating inter arrival times, weights and distributions of traffic sources; creating a plurality of traffic models for the one or more sources based on each of the prior steps; inputting each of the plurality of traffic models into a network simulator that is a discrete event simulator that simulates a traffic of the Smart Grid electricity network containing thousands of electrical devices; and determining a quality measure for simulated traffic for each of the plurality of traffic models executed by the discrete event network simulator.