Techniques are generally described for determining locations of a plurality of communication devices in a network. In some examples, methods for determining locations of a plurality of communication devices in a network may comprises formulating the determination as a quantitative problem based at least in part on one or more attributes between individual communication devices and one or more beacon nodes whose locations are known, wherein the quantitative problem is expressed in terms of an objective function, one or more constraints, and one or more models, and solving the quantitative problem to determine the location of at least a portion of the one or more communication devices, wherein the solving includes manipulation of at least the objective function, one of the one or more constraints or one of the one or more models. Additional variants and embodiments are also disclosed.