TELEPHONE TRAFFIC AND TRAFFIC ENGINEERING

Traffic in a communication network refers to the aggregate of all user requests being
serviced by the network

One of the most important steps in telecommunication system design is to determine the
number of trunks required on a route or connection between exchanges.

Blocking: - Blocking occurs whenever the number of calls, in or out, exceeds the
number of facilities (lines, trunks, agents, operators) available to support them. A blocked
call is given a busy signal, which requires the caller to disconnect, and try again.
Blocking probability is expressed as a percentage of denial, e.g. for 1 call in 100
blocked, it is expressed as P= 0.01 (1% of the offered calls will expect to be blocked).

Queuing: waiting in a holding facility until a telephone circuit becomes available.

DEFINITION OF TERMS:

Busy hour: The continuous one-hour period that, on consecutive days in the busy part of
the year, contains the maximum average traffic intensity.

Call: A discrete engagement or occupation of a traffic path.

Calling rate: The average number of calls placed during the busy hour.

Call-second, call-minute, call-hour: Units of traffic quantity representing the occupation of
a circuit for a second, minute, or hour.

Equated busy-hour call (EBHC): A European unit of traffic intensity equal to 1/30 of an
erlang.

Erlang: The international dimensionless unit of traffic intensity. One erlang is the traffic
intensity represented by an average of one circuit busy out of a group of circuits over
some period of time.

Full-availability group: A group of traffic-carrying trunks or circuits in which every circuit is
accessible to all the traffic sources.

Grade of service: A measure of the probability that, during a specified period of peak
traffic, a call offered to a group of trunks or circuits will fail to find an idle circuit at the first
attempt. Usually applied to the busy hour of traffic.

Holding time: The duration of occupancy of a traffic path by a call. Sometimes used to
mean the average duration of occupancy of one or more paths by calls.

Hundred call-second per hour (CCS): A unit of traffic intensity equal to 1/36 of an
erlang.

Infinite sources: The assumption that the number of sources offering traffic to a group of
trunks or circuits is large in comparison with the traffic load. A ratio of ten or higher is
often considered infinite.

Limited-access group: A group of traffic-carrying trunks or circuits in which only a fraction
of the circuits is accessible to any one group of the traffic sources.

Limited sources: The assumption that the number of sources offering traffic to a group of
trunks or circuits must be included in loss-probability calculations. Used in the binomial
and Engset loss-probability equations.

Lost calls cleared: The assumption that calls not immediately satisfied at the first attempt
are cleared from the system and do not reappear during the period under consideration.
Used in the Erlang B loss-probability equation.

Lost calls delayed: The assumption that calls not immediately satisfied at the first
attempt are held in the system until satisfied. Used in the Erlang C delay probability
equation.

Lost calls held: The assumption that calls not immediately satisfied at the first attempt
are held in the system until served or abandoned. The sum of waiting and service time is
assumed equal to what the service time would have been without delay. Used in the
Poisson loss-probability equation. (When the service time is a negative exponential, this
assumption has the same effect if holding and service times are independent and the
distribution of the callers holding time to abandon is a negative exponential with the
mean equal to that of the service time.)

Occupancy: The traffic intensity per traffic path. One hundred percent occupancy implies
all paths busy.

Traffic concentration: The average ratio of the traffic quantity during the busy hour to the
traffic quantity during the day.

Traffic intensity: The average number of calls present

Traffic load: See Traffic intensity.

Traffic path: A channel, time slot, frequency band, line, trunk, switch, or circuit over
which individual communications pass in sequence.

Traffic quantity: The aggregate engagement time or occupancy time of one or more
traffic paths.

TRAFFIC MEASURES

Traffic Quantity
Traffic quantity represents the total number of channel uses in units of time. It is of
particular use for billing or other volume calculations but is not useful by itself. Where
only this gross daily quantity is available, an estimate can be made of the busy-hour
traffic by making an assumption about the proportion of daily traffic appearing in the
busy hour. Direct busy-hour measurements are preferable, however, for calculating the
traffic performance of a traffic-carrying facility. The latter is a function of traffic intensity,
which is the quantity of traffic carried during a period of time.

Traffic Intensity
Traffic intensity, often called traffic load, is the average number of calls present during a
period of time.
It can be measured by averaging periodic counts of the number of calls present during
the period or, alternatively, by summing the duration of calls within the period and
dividing by the period length.

Call Intensity
For many traffic-carrying elements, the number of calls making up the total traffic load is
immaterial; the load represented by two calls of ten minutes duration has the same
impact as one call of twenty minutes duration. This is the case for switching-system
processors and controllers, where the duration of calls on the traffic-carrying paths is
irrelevant. Call intensity, or call rate, in calls per time unit, is frequently used, therefore, in
estimating traffic loads on control equipment.

Grade of Service
The overall grade of service of a switching system or trunk system refers to the ratio of
calls that are not completed at the first attempt to the total number of attempts to
establish a connection through the system during a specific period of time, usually the
busy hour. The traffic capacity of a switch, switching network, or trunk group is the traffic
load that will, on the average, provide the grade of service that is chosen as the service
objective.

Choice of Formula
The most important factors determining the choice of formula for estimating grade of
service are as follows:
A. The statistical nature of the call originations
Random from infinite sources
Random from finite sources
Peaked from infinite sources
Smooth from infinite sources
Periodic

B. The probability distribution of the call holding time

C. The availability of the circuits serving the traffic
Full access
Limited access in a graded multiple
Limited access through a switching network

D. The behavior of calls when blocked
Lost calls cleared
Lost calls delayed
Lost calls held
Lost calls retried at a later time










TRAFFIC EQUATIONS AND TABLES








The Erlang C Formula