Basic Traffic Theory

Chapter 2
This chapter is designed to provide the student with an overview of the basic concepts in telecommunications traffic theory. It will address the functions, features and required specifications needed by the system to collect and report statistics data.

OBJECTIVES:
Upon completion of this chapter the student will be able to: Identify the traffic terms used in statistics Define the terms traffic, loss system and delay system Understand the concept of Grade of Service (GoS) Define peg and level counters

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2 Basic Traffic Theory

Table of Contents

Topic

Page

TRAFFIC TERMS...................................................................................5
TRAFFIC UNIT............................................................................................................... 5 TRAFFIC FLOW............................................................................................................. 5 TRAFFIC DEMAND ....................................................................................................... 5 TRAFFIC OFFERED...................................................................................................... 5 TRAFFIC CARRIED....................................................................................................... 6 REJECTED TRAFFIC .................................................................................................... 6 CONVERSATION TRAFFIC .......................................................................................... 6 CALL INTENSITY .......................................................................................................... 6 MEAN HOLDING TIME.................................................................................................. 6 CONGESTION ............................................................................................................... 7

TRAFFIC THEORY ................................................................................7

GRADE OF SERVICE.................................................................................................... 8 LOSS SYSTEMS ........................................................................................................... 9 DELAY SYSTEMS ....................................................................................................... 11

COUNTERS .........................................................................................11

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TRAFFIC TERMS
The following are some commonly used terms when dealing with telecommunications traffic theory.

TRAFFIC UNIT
The traffic unit is called the ERLANG. ERLANG: The mean number of simultaneous occupations during a specified period of time (often implied to be one hour)

For example: One line 1 erlang: The line is occupied all the time for one hour. Some other common traffic units are: Equated Busy Hour Call (EBHC). 1 EBHC = 1/30 erlang Century (Hundred) Call Second (CCS). 1 CCS = 1/36 erlang

TRAFFIC FLOW
Traffic flow is the traffic volume per time unit. Traffic flow can be calculated as follows: 7 < 6

T = Traffic flow Y = Number of calls per time unit. S = Mean holding time. (also can use H)

TRAFFIC DEMAND
An abstract, hypothetical quantity which cannot be measured. The traffic demand is the traffic flow which would be offered to an idle traffic system.

TRAFFIC OFFERED
Depending on the traffic demand, a certain traffic flow is offered to the telephone system. The traffic offered can be estimated as the sum of the number of occupations and congested calls multiplied by the mean holding time of the occupation.

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TRAFFIC CARRIED
The inlet of the telephone system accepts a certain part of the traffic offered; this will be the traffic carried. The traffic carried can be expressed as the mean number of simultaneous occupations during a specified time interval.

REJECTED TRAFFIC
Rejected traffic is that part of the offered traffic which was not conveyed by the telephone system due to congestion or other failures.

CONVERSATION TRAFFIC
Conversation traffic is the through connected portion of the traffic offered. The unsuccessful portion of the traffic carried can be called "Busy-tone traffic and "No-answer traffic".

CALL INTENSITY
It is the total number of conversations per time unit which makes up the call intensity.

MEAN HOLDING TIME

It is reasonable to assume that different types of call attempt will have different holding times. The total volume of each type of call attempt can be expected to have an average holding time values that are typical of the types of call in question. This average holding time is defined as the Mean Holding Time and is calculated as below. 6 7<

S = Mean holding time. T = The traffic flow. Y = Number of calls per time unit.

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CONGESTION
When allocation of a new connection is impossible due to the unavailablity of channels, congestion occurs. The probability of the occurrence of congestion is also called congestion. The design of most digital switches is such that, if no internal congestion occurs, only so-called "Route congestion" will be handled. Route congestion occurs when a connection cannot be established due to lack of idle devices along the given route. Two types of congestion are as follows: Call Congestion When a call arrives and is not served immediately due to lack of devices, a congestion situation has occurred. This is called "Call congestion" or Blocking. Time Congestion When the last idle device is seized, there will be no more idle devices available to serve any new calls. From the time the last idle device was seized until a free (idle) device is obtainable, "Time congestion" will be in effect. How does congestion affect telephony devices? Here are a few examples. 1. Loss System This is a switching system in which a call attempt is immediately rejected because there is no free device to serve the required connection. The subscriber will have to make a new attempt to establish the desired connection. Lost calls in a "Loss system" are the calls that cannot be served because of congestion. 2. Delay System This is a switching system in which a call attempt is required to wait because there is no free device to serve the required connection. When a free device is found, an automatic connection with one of the waiting calls is made from the phase in the connection process in which congestion occurred. Lost calls in a delay system, are calls that cannot be served due to the fact that all queue places are occupied or that calls have been kicked out of the queue because of time release (max. allowed delay time has been exceeded) or these calls finally abandon their place in the queue.

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TRAFFIC THEORY
Cellular system capacity depends on a number of different factors. These include: The number of channels available for voice and/or data. The amount of traffic the subscribers are generating. The grade of service the subscribers are encountering in the system.

Traffic theory attempts to obtain useful estimates, for example, the number of channels needed in a cell. These estimates depend on the selected system and the assumed or real behavior of the subscribers. Traffic refers to the usage of channels, and is usually thought of as the holding time per time unit (or the number of call hours per hour) for one or several circuits (trunks or channels). Traffic is measured in the unit Erlang (E), and one subscriber can, if he spends all his time with the telephone, generate one call hour per hour or 1 E of traffic. There are three main concepts when dealing with Traffic: Traffic Offered (TO) Traffic Carried (TC) Traffic Lost (TL)

For all channels or devices that are congestion free, we accept that a certain proportion, B, of calls are lost. If we offer the traffic, TO (in erlang) to a device, B x TO = TL will be the traffic that is lost. This means that the carried traffic, i.e. the traffic that is served by the device is (1 - B) x TO = TC.

GRADE OF SERVICE
How much traffic one cell can carry depends on the number of traffic channels available and the acceptable probability that the system is congested, which is referred to as the Grade of Service (GoS). Different assumptions on subscriber behavior lead to different answers to this question.

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LOSS SYSTEMS
A loss system is a system where the subscriber is rejected if an idle channel or device can not be found. An examples of a loss system in AXE is the Group Switch. For most loss systems in AXE the erlang first formula (the erlang B formula) can be used. Erlangs (a Danish traffic theorist) B-model is based on the most common assumptions used. These assumptions are: no queues, i.e. a pure loss system number of subscribers much higher than number of traffic channels no dedicated (reserved) traffic channels Poisson distributed (random) traffic, i.e. the number of calls is large and the calls are independant of each other blocked calls abandon the call attempt immediately.

Erlangs B-model relates the number of traffic channels, the GoS and the traffic offered. This relationship is tabulated as in Figure 2-1, note that this is only part of the full erlang tables. Assuming that one cell has two carriers, corresponding typically to (2 x 8) - 2 = 14 traffic channels (two physical channels are needed for signaling) and a GoS of 2% is acceptable, the traffic that can be offered is A = 8.20 E. See Figure 2-1. This number is interesting if an estimate on the average traffic per subscriber can be obtained. Studies show that the average traffic per subscriber during the busy hour is typically 15-20 mE (this can correspond to e.g. one call, lasting 54-72 seconds, per hour). Dividing the traffic that one cell can offer, Acell=8.20 E, by the traffic per subscriber, here chosen as Asub=0.025 E, the number of subscribers one cell can support is derived as 8.20/0.025 = 328 subscribers.

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Grade of Service Q 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 .007 .00705 .12600 .39664 .77729 1.2362 1.7531 2.3149 2.9125 3.5395 4.1911 4.8637 5.5543 6.2607 6.9811 7.7139 8.4579 9.2119 9.9751 10.747 11.526 12.312 13.105 13.904 14.709 15.519 16.334 17.153 17.977 18.805 19.637 20.473 21.312 .008 .00806 .13532 .41757 .81029 1.2810 1.8093 2.3820 2.9902 3.6274 4.2889 4.9709 5.6708 6.3863 7.1154 7.8568 8.6092 9.3714 10.143 10.922 11.709 12.503 13.303 14.110 14.922 15.739 16.561 17.387 18.218 19.053 19.891 20.734 21.580 .009 .00908 .14416 .43711 .84085 1.3223 1.8610 2.4437 3.0615 3.7080 4.3784 5.0691 5.7774 6.5011 7.2382 7.9874 8.7474 9.6171 10.296 11.082 11.876 12.677 13.484 14.297 15.116 15.939 16.768 17.601 18.438 19.279 20.123 20.972 21.823 .01 .01010 .15259 .45549 .86942 1.3608 1.9090 2.5009 3.1276 3.7825 4.4612 5.1599 5.8760 6.6072 7.3517 8.1080 8.8750 9.6516 10.437 11.230 12.031 12.838 13.651 14.470 15.295 16.125 16.959 17.797 18.640 19.487 20.337 21.191 22.048 .02 .02041 .22347 .60221 1.0923 1.6571 2.2759 2.9354 3.6271 4.3447 5.0840 5.8415 6.6147 7.4015 8.2003 9.0096 9.8284 10.656 11.491 12.333 13.182 14.036 14.896 15.761 16.631 17.505 18.383 19.265 20.150 21.039 21.932 22.827 23.725 .03 .03093 .28155 .71513 1.2589 1.8752 2.5431 3.2497 3.9865 4.7479 5.5294 6.3280 7.1410 7.9667 8.8035 9.6500 10.505 11.368 12.238 13.115 13.997 14.885 15.778 16.675 17.577 18.483 19.392 20.305 21.221 22.140 23.062 23.987 24.914 .05 .05263 .38132 .89940 1.5246 2.2185 2.9603 3.7378 4.5430 5.3702 6.2157 7.0764 7.9501 8.8349 9.7295 10.633 11.544 12.461 13.385 14.315 15.249 16.189 17.132 18.080 19.031 19.985 20.943 21.904 22.867 23.833 24.802 25.773 26.746 .1 .11111 .59543 1.2708 2.0454 2.8811 3.7584 4.6662 5.5971 6.5464 7.5106 8.4871 9.4740 10.470 11.473 12.484 13.500 14.522 15.548 16.579 17.613 18.651 19.692 20.737 21.784 22.833 23.885 24.939 25.995 27.053 28.113 29.174 30.237 .2 .25000 1.0000 1.9299 2.9452 4.0104 5.1086 6.2302 7.3692 8.5217 9.6850 10.857 12.036 13.222 14.413 15.608 16.807 18.010 19.216 20.424 21.635 22.848 24.064 25.281 26.499 27.720 28.941 30.164 31.388 32.614 33.840 35.067 36.295 .4 .66667 2.0000 3.4798 5.0210 6.5955 8.1907 9.7998 11.419 13.045 14.677 16.314 17.954 19.598 21.243 22.891 24.541 26.192 27.844 29.498 31.152 32.808 34.464 36.121 37.779 39.437 41.096 42.755 44.414 46.074 47.735 49.395 51.056 Q 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

Figure 2-1. Part of Erlangs B-table, yielding the traffic (in Erlang) as a function of the GoS (columns) and number of traffic channels (rows)

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DELAY SYSTEMS
A delay system is characterized by the fact that it has a queue (buffer) where calls are put if no free channel or device is available. Calls which arrive when there are queued calls are said to meet congestion and are themselves forced to wait. Contrary to the loss system, these unsuccessful calls are not discarded but only delayed. The time which elapses between the instant of arrival of a call and the instant at which a call is allocated to a channel or device (i.e. the time spent waiting in a queue) is known as the waiting time. The formation of a queue is the main feature which distinguishes waiting systems from loss systems. For most delay systems the erlang second formula (the erlang C formula) can be used, based on the following additional assumptions (over the erlang first fomula): calls arriving when all channels or devices are busy form a queue and wait in the order of their arrival for free channels or devices.

COUNTERS
There are a number of different types of data that can be collected from the system: Event data: Events such as Seizure, congestion, successful connection and others can be measured. Event data shows the number of events which are occurring all the time. The values of these events stored are increasing all the time. Level measurement data: This consists of levels, such as, the number of idle channels that exist at a certain moment or the number of blocked devices that exist at a certain point in time. Level measurement data shows the number of devices which are in a specific condition at a particular moment. Accumulation measurement data: For different purposes, the accumulated level needs to be calculated, as well as the number of accumulations.

This data is normally collected using counters. Counters are the means by which statistics are generated and are basic data that is collected in the system. A number of counters that belong together are grouped into what is known as an Object Type.

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There are a number of different types of counters that correspond to the different types of data that is to be collected. These are: Peg counters (PC). These are the number of events that have occurred. This type of counter is incremented only. Level counters. These show the current status. This type of counter is incremented as well as decremented. In STS these are referred to as Status Counters (ST). Accumulated level counters. These are also peg counters and are used to show the accumulated count of certain levels at regular intervals the number of times that the accumulations have occurred

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