Topic 7

Introduction to Network
Engineering: Erlang model

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 Some concepts
• The ability to simultaneously respond to
multiple users of network depends on the
number of servers. They can be:
– Number of lanes in a large road
– Number of seats on a bus
– Number of trunks on telephone system
– Number of wireless channel on mobile system
– The size of the circuited switching

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 Some concepts
• Each user's request will occupy a server for an interval
time. Its called personal traffic. The total traffic of all
users request in the network is called the offered traffic
• If the offered traffic is large, the number of servers is
small leading to waiting or not being served of users
• The probability of waiting or not being served is called
the grade of service
• Question: How to design a system (determine the
number of servers) optimized with the offered traffic and
grade of service that are given.

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 Traffic intensity
• Product of calling rate and holding time is traffic of a call
(measure by Erlang)

• Example: C=3 time/hour, T=10 minute/call

Traffic Au =3.10 minute/60minute=0.5 Erlang
• Concept: Carried traffic, offered traffic, lost calls.
• A call is lost because it meet congestion or blockage at
switch.
• Traffic intensity is system traffic per unit of time To design
a telephone exchange, have to know the traffic intensity of
busy time.
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 Traffic intensity varies with the
time in day

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 Grade of Service (GOS)

• Three quantities: offered traffic, number of

servers (trunks in telephone) and the probability
of loss call are related to particular formulas
• These formulas depend on how do process the
lost calls
• Design system based on these formulas

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• Three kind of handling of a exchange for the loss call:
– Lost calls held (LCH, immediately redial, North
America) → Poisson traffic model
– Lost calls cleared (LCC, hang up and wait some time
interval before redial, redial is new call, Europe)
→ Erlang B traffic model
– Lost calls delayed (LCD, put the loss call in queue)
→ Erlang C queue model

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 Poisson traffic model
• The Poisson formula is used to predict the probability that a call will be
blocked (North America) with assumption
– There are an infinite number of sources;
– Calls are served in random order;
– Blocked calls are held (protocol :wait for connection); and
– Holding times are exponentially distributed or constant.

• where:
P=Poisson loss probability
N=Number of trunks
A=Traffic offered in Erlang
Formula concern to Poisson distribution (called Poisson traffic model)
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 Table of Poisson model

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PABX (private automatic branch
exchange)
• Example 1
• Design a remote PABX connected by a tie-line
that will be used for all inbound calls to that
PABX which will have 775 active ends. Known
30mEr of inbound traffic per active end, and
GOS should be better than 0.001.
How many trunks do need in the tie line route?
• Answer: to carry 23.25E (775*0.03), Need 40
trunks, and the actual grade of service should be
0.001.

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• Example 2
• A Service need less than 5% of customer
calls will get a busy signal.
• But there are 2 x E1 trunk route (60
channels) on call centre carrying
51.806E. Should the incoming route be
sufficient to meet that Service
• Answer: No, busy rate should be about
14.3%.
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 Erlang B traffic model
• The Erlang B formula is used to predict the probability that a call will
be blocked (or lost call)
– There are an infinite number of sources;
– Calls arrive at random;
– Calls are served in order of arrival;
– Blocked calls are lost (or cleared , need redial next time); and
– Holding times are exponentially distributed.

• where:
B=Erlang B loss probability
N=Number of trunks in full availability group
A=Traffic offered to group in Erlang
Formula concern to Erlang distribution

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UET-VNU Hà nội Faculty of Elec.& Communications 13
• Example 1
• Design a remote PABX connected by a tieline
that will be used for all inbound calls to that
PABX which will have 780 active ends. Known
30mEr of inbound traffic per active end, and
GOS should be better than 0.001.
How many trunks do I need in the tie line route?
• Answer: to carry 23.4Er (780*0.03), I need 39
trunks, and the actual grade of service should be
0.001.

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• Example 2
• A Service need less than 5% of customer calls
will get a busy signal.
But there are 2 x E1 trunk route (60 channels) on
my call centre carrying 51.806Er.
Should the incoming route be sufficient to meet
my Service Level Objective.
• Answer: Yes, busy rate should be about 3.1%.

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 Erlang C queue model
• The Erlang C formula is used to predict the probability that a call will be
delayed (block and wait in queue), and can be used to predict the
probability that a call will be delayed more than a certain time.(FIFO
system)
– There are an infinite number of sources;
– Calls arrive at random;
– Calls are served in order of arrival;
– Blocked calls are delayed; and
– Holding times are exponentially distributed.

• where:
Pr(>0)=Probability of delay greater than zero
C=Number of servers in full availability group
A=Traffic offered to group in Erlangs
• H= Average Holding time for a call
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 Erlan C

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 Revision
• What is traffic intensity
• What is Grade of service
• How to design the size of circuit switching
• What are different between traffic model
of poison, erlang B,C

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 Summary
• In Network there are circuited switching and packet
switching. The packet switching need a buffer in
addition
• A size of circuited switching (number of trunks) based
on Erlang formula, which relating to offered traffic and
grade of service. The local switch have to be a non-
blocking switch in local area.
• Multi access (share system) to exchange depend on
on the method of handling lost calls. There are three
handlings concerning to Erlang formulas
• Multiplexing (share a link) can carried out in the time
domain. There is the switch mixing time and space.
• Need protocols for two target: Ensure communication
and optimize network to use
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