Traffic Analysis and

Characterization
Traffic Studies
• Telephone exchanges (switches) are connected by trunks
or junctions.
• The number of trunks connecting exchange X with
exchange Y is the number of voice pairs or their equivalent
used in the connection.
• 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.
• To dimension the route correctly we must have some idea
of its usage—that is, how many people will wish to talk at
once over the route.
• The usage of a transmission route or switch brings us into
the realm of traffic engineering;
 Introduction to the Busy Hour

The busy hour

• The network is dimensioned (sized) to meet the period of maximum usage demand.
• This period is called the busy hour (BH). There are two periods where traffic
demand on the PSTN is maximum: one in the morning and one in the afternoon.
•There are at least four distinct definitions of the busy hour. The IEEE (Ref. 2) gives
several definitions. We quote only one: “That uninterrupted period of 60 minutes
during the day when the traffic offered is maximum.”
Parameters defining Telephone Traffic

– Calling rate, or the number of times a route or

traffic path is used per unit time period; or more
properly defined, “the call intensity per traffic path
during the busy hour (BH)”; and
– Holding time, or “the average duration of
occupancy of one or more paths by calls.”
 Terms used in Traffic analysis

• A traffic path is a “channel, time slot, frequency band,

line, trunk switch, or circuit over which individual
communications pass in sequence.”
• Carried traffic is the volume of traffic actually carried
by a switch, and offered traffic is the volume of traffic
offered to a switch.
• Offered traffic minus carried traffic equals lost calls.
• A lost call is one that does not make it through a
switch.
• A call is “lost” usually because it meets congestion or
blockage at that switch.
 Terms used in Traffic analysis

• Busy Hour. The busy hour refers to the traffic volume

or number of call attempts, and is that continuous one-
hour period being wholly in the time interval
concerned for which this quantity (i.e., traffic volume
or call attempts) is greatest.
• The Average Busy Season Busy Hour (ABSBH). This is
used for trunk groups and always has a grade of service
criterion applied. For example, for the ABSBH load, a
call requiring a circuit in a trunk group should
encounter all trunks busy (ATB) no more than 1% of the
time.
 Significance of the Busy Hour
• When dimensioning telephone exchanges and transmission
routes, we shall be working with BH traffic levels and care must
be used in the definition of the busy hour.
• Peak traffic loads are of greater concern than average loads for
the system planner when dimensioning switching equipment.
• Another concern in modern digital switching systems is call
attempts.
• We could say that call attempts is synonymous with offered
traffic.
• Even though a call is not carried and is turned away, the switch’s
processor or computer is still exercised.
• In many instances a switch’s capability to route traffic is limited
by the peak number of call attempts its processor can handle.
TRAFFIC ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES

1. LOSS SYSTEMS

2. DELAY SYSTEMS

8
 LOSS SYSTEMS

In LOSS SYSTEMS overload traffic is rejected without being

serviced.

Conventional circuit switching operates as a loss system since

excess traffic is blocked and not serviced.
‘Lost Calls’ represent opportunity lost to earn revenue.
The basic measure of performance for a ‘LOSS’ system
is the probability of rejection – blocking probability.

9
 DELAY SYSTEMS

In DELAY SYSTEMS overload traffic is held in a queue until

facilities become available to service it.

Store & Forward message or Packet Switching represent the

DELAY system.

The performance of the DELAY system is measured in terms of

the service delay. The network is dimensioned for average
delay and the probability of exceeding the average delay is
computed.

10
 PRACTICAL SYSTEMS

Practical systems are quite often a combination of LOSS and

DELAY systems.

Circuit switching uses queuing concept in the provisioning of

call processor, digit receiver, etc.

Limited queue size in Packet Switching & Message switching

results in loss if the traffic exceeds the design load.

11
 NATURE OF COMMUNICATION
TRAFFIC
Stochastic or Random in nature
Also called PURE CHANCE traffic
Random ‘Call arrivals’- arrival of request from one user is
independent of the arrival from other users. Number of
arrivals during a particular time interval is indeterminate.

Unpredictable ‘Holding times’- holding times are distributed

randomly. For ease of analysis, sometimes a fixed holding
time is assumed.

12
 TYPICAL ACTIVITY PROFILE
REQUIRED TRUNK GROUPS
20
COMPOSITE
ACTIVITY

15
MAX : 15
10 AV : 11

20 INDEPENDENT SOURCES
20
INDIVIDUAL CHANNEL

15
ACTIVITY

10

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
TIME IN MINUTES
13
• Call Completion Rate (CCR): ratio of the number
of successful callls to the number of call
attempts.
• Busy Hour Call Attempts (BHCA):number of call
attempts in the busy hour.
• Busy Hour Calling Rate (BHCR): average number
of calls originated by a subscriber during the
busy hour.
 Tutorial
• An exchange serves 2000 subscribers. If the
average BHCA is 10000 and CCR is 60%,
calculate the busy hour calling rate.
 Tutorial
• An exchange serves 2000 subscribers. If the
average BHCA is 10000 and CCR is 60%,
calculate the busy hour calling rate.
• Solution:
• Average busy hour calls=BHCA x CCR = 6000
calls
• Busy hour calling rate = average busy hour
calls/total number of subscribers
=3
 Tutorial

• In a group of 10 servers, each is occupied for

30 minutes in an observation interval of two
hours. Calculate the traffic carried by the
group.
 Tutorial

• In a group of 10 servers, each is occupied for 30 minutes in an

observation interval of two hours. Calculate the traffic carried by
the group.
• Solution:
• Traffic carried per server = occupied duration/total duration
=30/120
=0.25 E
• Total traffic carried by the group = 10 x 0.25 = 2.5 E
 TRAFFIC MEASUREMENTS
Network capacity = Volume of traffic carried over a
period of time
Traffic volume is the sum of all holding times carried during
the interval.
In the example, the traffic volume is the area under the
composite activity curve – about 84 call minutes
Traffic intensity is a more useful measure of traffic.
Traffic intensity = total volume/ total time
In this example, traffic intensity = 84/8= 10.5
Dimensionless ; call minutes/minutes

20
• Measurement of Telephone Traffic.
• If we define telephone traffic as the aggregate of
telephone calls over a group of circuits or trunks with
regard to the duration of calls as well as their number,
we can say that traffic flow (A) is expressed as
A=C×T
• where C designates the number of calls originated
during the period of one hour, and T is the average
holding time, usually given in hours. A is a
dimensionless unit because we are multiplying
calls/hour by hour/call.
• Suppose that the average holding time is 2.5 minutes and the
calling rate in the BH for a particular day is 237. The traffic flow
(A) would then be 237 × 2.5, or 592.5 call-minutes (Cm) or
593.5/60, or about 9.87 call-hours (Ch).

• The preferred unit of traffic intensity is the erlang, named after

the Danish mathematician A.K. Erlang (Copenhagen Telephone
Company, 1928).

• The erlang is a dimensionless unit. One erlang represents a

circuit occupied for one hour.

• Considering a group of circuits, traffic intensity in erlangs is the

number of call-seconds per second or the number of call-hours
per hour.

• If we knew that a group of 10 circuits had a call intensity of 5

erlangs, we would expect half of the circuits to be busy at the
time of measurement.
 Blockage, Lost Calls, and Grade of Service
• E.g. of isolated exchange serving 5000 subscribers, out of
which not more than 10% wish service simultaneously.
• Therefore, the exchange is dimensioned with
sufficient equipment to complete 500 simultaneous
connections.

• Each connection would be, of course, between any two of the

5000 subscribers.
• Now let subscriber 501 attempt to originate a call. She/he
cannot complete the call because all the connecting
equipment is busy, even though the line she/he wishes to
reach may be idle.
• This call from subscriber 501 is termed a lost call or blocked
call. She/he has met blockage.
• The probability of encountering blockage is an
important parameter in traffic engineering of
telecommunication systems.
• If congestion conditions are to be met in a
telephone system, we can expect that those
conditions will usually be encountered during the
BH.
• A switch is dimensioned (sized) to handle the BH
load.
• However over dimensioning is uneconomical.
• So with a well-designed switch, during the busiest
of BHs we can expect moments of congestion such
that additional call attempts will meet blockage.
• Grade of service expresses the probability of meeting
blockage during the BH and is commonly expressed by the
letter p.
• GOS=(A-A0)/A
A=offered traffic
A0=carried traffic
A-A0=lost traffic

• A typical grade of service is p = 0.01. This means that an

average of one call in 100 will be blocked or “lost” during the
BH.
• Grade of service, a term in the Erlang formula, is more
accurately defined as the probability of blockage. It is
important to remember that lost calls (blocked calls) refer to
calls that fail at first trial. We discuss attempts (at dialing)
later—that is, the way blocked calls are handled.
• If we know that there are 354 seizures (i.e., lines
connected for service) and 6 blocked calls (i.e., lost
calls) during the BH, what is the grade of service?
• Grade of service = Number of lost calls/Number of
offered calls
= 6/(354 + 6) = 6/360
p ≈ 0.017.
• GOS=(A-A0)/A
A=offered traffic
A0=carried traffic
A-A0=lost traffic