Overview of the lecture

• Trunking theory - Grade of service

(GOS)
• Examples
• GOS (grade of service)- ability of a user to access the system at
the busiest time.
• Quantified as the probability of a call request being blocked or
the probability of a call being forced to wait for a certain time
• Developed in 1800 by Erlang
• “Erlang” defines the fraction of time for which the channel is
occupied.
• One continuous call is 1 Erlang.
• A channel that has traffic only half time carries 0.5 Erlangs of
traffic.
• μ - call request rate per user (number of calls per hour)
• H - holding time (average call length!)
• The offered traffic intensity per user in Erlangs
Aμ = μH [Erlangs]

• Total traffic intensity in Erlangs A=U A

 
• For example, 1 call-hour per hour, a channel occupied for 30
mins per hour carries 0.5 Erlangs of traffic.
=1/3600 s-1
H=30*60 s
A=H=0.5 Erlangs

• For u users and c channels.

• Total offered traffic intensity per channel:
Ac=u μH/c
• Each call requires a channel
• Dedicating a channel to each user -inefficient
OR
• “Pooling” channels – each user is allocated a
channel from the pool on a request– preferred
method
– Erlang B model (“Blocks call cleared”)
– Erlang C model (“Blocked calls delayed”)
 Erlang B model
• No queuing of call requests, the model
assumes that calls that can’t be allocated a
free channel are blocked and forgotten
about. It is further assumed that:
– There are an infinite number of users
– There is no memory
– There are a finite number of channels
• The GOS is quantified by the probability of
a call being blocked which is given by:
A /c!
c
Pr(blocking) = c

A
k =0
k
/k!

- A is the total offered traffic

 0.1

0.01

0.001
0.1 1 10
Traffic intensity/Erlangs (B)
 Erlang C model

• Blocked calls are delayed until a channel

becomes available.
• The GOS is quantified as the probability of
a call being forced to wait more than a
certain time before being given a channel.
 Erlang C model
The probability of a call being forced to wait more than a
certain time before being given a channel:

Pr(delay > t) = Pr(delay > 0) Pr(delay > t given that delay > 0)
Ac
Pr(delay > 0) = c!
c -1
Ac   1 - A   A k /k!
c!  c 
k=0
t
Pr(delay > t given delay > 0) = e -(c - A)
H

and the average delay for all calls is given by

H
Pr(delay > 0)
c- A
 1

0.1

0.01

0.001
0.1 1 10

Traffic intensity/Erlangs (C)

 Example 1
• How many users can be supported for 0.5% probability of blocking
in a system that has 10 channels and is a blocked calls cleared
system. Assume that each user generates 0.1 Erlangs of traffic.

*************************************************

Erlang B graph:
c=10 and GOS = 0.005 (0.5%) => A 4.
No of users=> u=A*c=40
Example 2
• A city has 2 million people. A trunked mobile system has 394 cells with 19 channels
in each. Find the percentage of the population that can be served with 2% probability
of blocking (blocked calls cleared). Each user averages 2 calls per hour each on
average minutes long .
************************************************
Each cell has c=19;
Call request per user: μ=2/3600 sec -1
Holding time: H=3*60 sec;
The offered traffic intensity=>A = u μH = 0.1u
 
From the graph, with c=19 and GOS = 2% (0.02) gives A12 Erlangs.
Therefore no users per cell => u=A/0.1=120
total number of people = 394*120=47280 = 2.4% of population.
Example 3
• A cellular system uses hexagonal cells of “radius” 1.387km and area of 5 sqkm. There are 4 cells in a cluster. A total of 60
channels are used for the whole system. The offered traffic per user is 0.029 Erlangs and the call request rate is 1. For an Erlang C
model with a GOS of 5%, determine,
a) The number of users/sqkm that can be served
b) The probability of a delayed call being delayed for more than 10 secs
c) The probability of a call being delayed more than 10 secs
************************************************
Channels per cell = 60/4=15
From Erlang C graph Pr (delay >0) = 5% => A=8.8 Erlangs = uAu=u*0.029
No users per cell = 8.8/0.029=303
No users/sqkm = 60
μ=1/3600, Aμ =μH = 0.029 => H=104 secs
*******************
The probability of a delayed call being delayed for more than 10 secs:
Pr(t>10 given t>0) = e-(c-A)t/H = e-(15-8.8)*10/104 = 52.5% ( answer to b )
*******************
The probability of a call being delayed more than 10 secs

Pr(t>10) = Pr(t>0)*0.522 = 0.05*0.522 = 2.76% ( answer to c )

Pr(delay > t) = Pr(delay > 0) Pr(delay > t given that delay > 0)
 Overview of the lecture
• Trunking theory - Grade of Service
(GOS)
• Examples