Are you an engineer in telecommunications responsible for planning and laying out complex communication networks in a cost-effective, optimal way? Or, are you an Internet-based service provider such as Vodafone interested in optimally maintaining a mobile phone network? Or, are you a scholar teaching and performing studies for bio-inspired algorithms and their impact on real-world applications, such as designing optimal (low energy consumption, maximum quality of service possible) telecommunication networks?

If the answer to the above questions is a “yes,” then reading this book will broaden your horizons with regard to how one could solve optimization problems by applying bio-inspired algorithms, with particular emphasis on telecommunications networks. It is well known and accepted that bio-inspired algorithms, such as swarm intelligence and the firefly algorithm, genetic algorithms (GAs), evolutionary algorithms (EAs), and so on, are good candidates for optimization problems. Since telecommunications is filled with a variety of such problems, bringing together these two fields has been the main objective of the editors.

The book contains invited chapters, written by different authors, discussing interesting telecommunications problems and how specific bio-inspired algorithms apply. For instance, intrusion detection systems are often enabled by evolution algorithms and computation.

In all, there are 13 chapters providing enough material, including a large number of references, for using this book as a textbook for teaching related courses at the master’s degree level. It could be used for courses related to telecommunications, as well as for courses related to advanced algorithmics. Given that the algorithms are described using pseudocode, it is not necessary to be familiar with a particular programming language. However, the intended audience must have some background in electronic engineering or computing before starting to read through the chapters of the book.