Telecommunication Networks
15B11EC611
Dr. Bhagirath Sahu
Assistant Professor, JIIT, Noida
LECTURE: 03
TRAFFIC ENGINEERING
TRAFFIC ENGINEERING (Teletraffic Engineering and Traffic Management)
Introduction
➢ The theory of traffic engineering was originally conceived by A.K.
Erlang, a Danish mathematician.
➢ It provides the basis for the analysis and design of telecommunication
networks.
➢ The task of designing cost effective networks that provides the
required quality of service under varied traffic conditions demands a
formal scientific basis. Such a basis is provided by traffic engineering.
➢ Traffic engineering analysis enables one to determine the ability of a
telecommunication network to carry a given traffic at a particular loss
probability.
Network Traffic Load
➢ Figure shows the
telephone traffic
pattern on a
working day
➢ There is little use of
network during 0
and 6 hours, when
most of the
population is asleep
➢ Large peak around mid-forenoon and mid-afternoon denotes busy office activities
➢ Low load → Lunch-hour period i.e. 12-14 hours
→ period 17 – 18 hours; people are on the move from office to their
residence
➢ During holidays and festival days, the traffic pattern is different from that shown in
Figure
Network Traffic Parameters
Busy Hour (BH)
In a day, the 60-minute interval in which the traffic is the highest.
In Figure, hour 11-12 is BH
BH → vary from exchange to exchange depending on the location and community
BH variations → caused by Stock market activities, weather, natural disaster etc
➔To take into account such fluctuations while designing switching networks →
three types of BHs are defined by CCITT
1. Busy Hour (BH): 1-hour period for which the number of call attempts is greatest
2. Peak Busy Hour: The busy hour each day; it usually varies from day-to-day
3. Time Consistent Busy Hour: The 1-hour period starting at the same time each
day
CCITT: Consultative Committee for International Telephony and Telegraphy
Network Traffic Parameters
➢ Not all call attempts materialize into actual conversations for a variety of
reasons:
• Line busy
• No answer from the called line
• Blocking in the switching centers
✓ A call attempt is said to be successful or completed if the called party
answers
Call Completion Rate (CCR)
• The ratio of the number of successful calls to the number of call
attempts.
• CCR → should be greater than 0.70, if 0.75 – network is
considered excellent
Network Traffic Parameters
Busy Hour Call Attempts (BHCA)
• The number of call attempts in the busy hour is called BHCA.
Busy Hour Calling Rate (BHCR)
• The average number of calls originated by a subscriber during the
busy hour
• BHCR = (average busy hour calls) / (total number of subscribers)
• Useful in sizing the exchange to handle the peak traffic
• In rural area exchange, BHCR as low as 0.2
• In Business city/urban area exchange, BHCR as high as 3 or more
Network Traffic Parameters
Example 1: An exchange serves 2000 subscribers. If the average BHCA is 10,000
and the CCR is 60%, calculate the BHCR
Solution:
Average busy hour calls = BHCA x CCR = 10000 x 60 / 100 = 6000 calls
BHCR = 6000 / 2000 = 3
Network Traffic Parameters
Day-to-busy hour traffic ratio
• The ratio of BHCR to the average calling rate for the day.
• Useful to know how much of the day’s total traffic is carried
during the BH
• For rural area → 6 – 7
• For urban area → 20 or more
❖ The traffic load on a given network may be on
• The local switching unit
• Inter-office trunk lines
• Other common subsystems (called servers)
Network Traffic Parameters
❖ The traffic on the network may be measured in terms of the occupancy
of the servers in the network.
❖ Such a measure is called the TRAFFIC INTENSITY (A0)
❖ Traffic Intensity (A0) = {period for which a server is occupied} / {total
period of observation (generally one hour)}
❖ A0 = Dimensionless
❖ A0 is called erlang (E) → to honour the Danish telephone engineer A. K.
Erlang
❖ 1 erlang ➔ a server is said to have 1 erlang of traffic if it is occupied for
the entire period of observation
Network Traffic Parameters
Example 2: 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
Network Traffic Parameters
Example 3: A group of 20 servers carry a traffic of 10 erlangs. If the average
duration of a call is three minutes, calculate the number of calls put through by a
single server and the group in a one-hour period.
Solution:
Traffic per server = 10 / 20 = 0.5 E
i.e. a server is busy for 30 minutes in one hour
Number of calls put through by one server = 30 / 3 = 10 calls
Number of calls put through by the group = 10 x 20 = 200 calls
Network Traffic Parameters
Another way to measure the Traffic intensity in terms of CENTUM CALL
SECOND (CCS)
Centum Call Second (CCS):
• Represents a call-time product
• 1 CCS = 1 call for 100 seconds or 100 calls for 1 second or any other
combination
➢ CCS as a measure of traffic intensity is valid only in telephone circuits, while
➢ Erlang (E) is valid for all type of services (like voice, data, and other)
➢ Sometimes Call Seconds (CS) and Call Minutes (CM) are also used as a
measure of traffic intensity
➢ Note ➔ 1E = 36 CCS = 3600 CS = 60 CM
Network Traffic Parameters
Example 4: A subscriber makes three phone calls of 3 minutes, 4 minutes, and 2
minutes duration in a one-hour period. Calculate the subscriber traffic in
erlangs, CCS, and CM.
Solution:
Subscriber traffic in erlangs = busy period / total period = (3+4+2)/60 = 0.15 E
Traffic in CCS = 0.15 x 36 = 5.4 CCS
Or Traffic in CCS = ((3+4+2) x 60) / 100 = 5.4 CCS
Traffic in CM = 0.15 x 60 = 90CM
Or Traffic in CM = 3 + 4 + 2 = 9 CM
Network Traffic Parameters
As mentioned, traffic intensity is a call-time product
→ Hence Two important parameters that are required to estimate the traffic intensity
or the network load are:
1. Average call arrival rate, C
2. Average holding time per call, th
Hence, load network, A = C th
Network Traffic Parameters
Hence, load network, A = C th
Example 5: Over a 20-minute observation interval, 40 subscribers initiate calls.
Total duration of the calls is 4800 seconds. Calculate the load offered to the
network by the subscribers and the average subscriber traffic.
Solution:
Average arrival rate C = 40 / 20 = 2 calls/minute
Average holding time th = 4800 / (40 x 60) = 2 minutes/call
Therefore,
Offered load = 2 x 2 = 4 E
Average subscriber traffic = 4 / 40 = 0.1 E
Network Traffic Parameters
we have calculated the traffic in 2 ways:
1. Traffic generated by the subscribers
2. Observation of busy servers in the network
Traffic generated by the subscribers → may exceeds the network capacity → Hence
➢ There are two ways to handle the overload traffic
a) Overload traffic may be rejected without being serviced → calls are lost →
Loss systems → Automatic telephone exchange
b) Overload traffic may be held in queue → calls are delayed → Delay systems
→ operator-oriented manual exchange
Loss system Delay system
Performance parameters Grade of Service (GOS) and Service delays
Blocking probability (PB)
Traffic models used for Blocking or congestion Queuing models
studying models
Grade of Service and Blocking Probability
Grade of Service (GOS)
❖ In loss systems, the traffic carried by the network is generally lower than
the actual traffic offered to the network by the subscribers. The overload
traffic is rejected.
❖ The amount of traffic rejected by the network is an index of the quality of
service offered by the network. This is termed grade of service.
❖ GOS is defined as the ratio of lost traffic to offered traffic
❖ GOS = (A-A0) / A , A = Offered traffic, A0 = Carried traffic, A-A0 = Lost traffic
❖ the value of GOS should be small for better service
❖ In India, GOS = 0.002 ➔ 2 calls may be lost in every 1000 calls
Blocking probability (PB):
✓ PB defined as the probability that all the servers in a system are busy.
➢ In a system with equal number of servers and subscribers:
• GOS = 0, as there is always a server available to a subscriber
• PB ≠ 0, as all the servers are busy at a given instant
➢ The fundamental difference between GOS and PB:
• GOS is a measure from the subscriber point of view, whereas
• PB is a measure from the network or switching system point of view
GOS PB
Measure from the subscriber point of view Measure from the network or switching
system point of view
GOS is arrived at by observing the number PB is arrived at by observing the busy
of rejected subscribers calls servers in the switching systems
GOS is called Call Congestion of Loss PB is called time congestion
probability
Subscriber viewpoint: GOS = call congestion = loss probability
Network viewpoint: Blocking probability = time congestion
Example 6: A call processor in an exchange requires 240 millisecond to complete 1 process
of the call (call processing time or call service time).What is the BHCA rating for the
processor. If the exchange is capable of carrying 900E of traffic, what is the CCR? Also
calculate the GOS of the system. Assume call holding time (total time complete a call-all
the processes) is 2 minutes.
Call processing time (tp) = 1hr / Busy Hour Call Attempts (BHCA)
Busy Hour Calling Rate (BHCR) = Average BH calls / Total no. of subscribers = BHCA x CCR / N
CCR = No. of successful calls (carried traffic) / No. of call attempts (offered traffic)
Offered traffic (A) = Total calls (BHCA) x Call duration / observation time
Example 6: A call processor in an exchange requires 240 millisecond to complete 1 process
of the call (call processing time or call service time).What is the BHCA rating for the
processor. If the exchange is capable of carrying 900E of traffic, what is the CCR? Also
calculate the GOS of the system. Assume call holding time (total time complete a call-all
the processes) is 2 minutes.
Solution: BHCA = 1 hr / call processing time = 3600 s / 240 ms = 15,000
Given, Carried traffic = 900 E
Offered traffic = (BHCA X call duration) / observation time
= (15000 X 2) / 60 = 500 E
CCR = carried traffic / offered traffic = 900 / 500 = 1.8
But CCR > 100% not possible, so CCR = 1 Ans
GOS = (offered traffic – Carried traffic) / offered traffic = (500 – 900) / 500 = – 0.8
GOS ≠ -ve So GOS = 0 Ans
