This thesis presents a challenging telecommunication network design problem, in which the network designer has to assure not only connectivity, but also some degree of performance guarantee and survivability to the solution. We introduce a topological and capacity design, with node-pair constraints of heterogeneous bounds. These constraints take into account the throughput, the number of node-disjoint paths, and the maximum number of hops. Moreover, the capacity to place on each link is chosen from a pool of available cable types, each with its maximum capacity and fixed cost, in other words the cost function is stepwise with respect to capacity usage. The solution space of the problem in study is composed by each one of the node-pair demands. An in-depth combinatorial study was done, leading to the development of a new coding for genetic