Capacity planning of telecommunication systems using classical methods typically ignores important system characteristics (such as redialing behavior, handoff traffic or voice/data interaction). Steady-state multi-dimensional birth-death models offer a remedy to this but requires the numerical solution to large linear matrix equations where the matrix has a special structure. This talk describes a new class of algorithms which exploit this structure and is faster, requires less memory, and has more accuracy than all known alternatives. The talk will ends with an overview of an associate software system which implements the above algorithm, specific applications, and some representative numerical results including the solution to a 320,000 variable problem.