You are on page 1of 29

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

OUTLINE
1. 2. 3. 4. OVERVIEW TERMINOLOGY TRAFFIC THEORY IMPLEMENTATION

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

1. OVERVIEW
 GSM cellular structure
    Geographical area is sub-divided into cells/sectors The term cell will be used to identify the smallest entity in the network/frequency planning aspect of RF design. Number of cells in each cluster is generally NOT part of traffic engineering but determined by RF engineering principles (e.g. coverage objectives) However, we will have to consider the impact to/from traffic engineering issues on using small/large cluster sizes.

 

In cellular systems, traffic channels are a shared resource, thus may be unavailable when requested. Objective of traffic engineering is to ensure that optimal amount of resources are utilized to ensure subscriber enjoys a certain defined quality of service.

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

Why traffic engineering?  Traffic engineering gives us the means to forecast/estimate traffic growth and plan accordingly.  It is a proactive way of addressing congestion, allowing us time to prepare expansion resources.  Without traffic engineering, we would depend on blocking statistics to tell us that a cell is congested, but that is reactive and subscribers would continue to suffer while resources are being prepared to address the congestion.
Sample Traffic Pattern
3.5 3.0 2.5 Traffic (Erlangs) 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 1-Nov 8-Nov 6-Dec 13-Dec 20-Dec 27-Dec 10-Jan 17-Jan 24-Jan 15-Nov 22-Nov 29-Nov 31-Jan 3-Jan

Date

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

2. TERMINOLOGY
        Attempts/Bids any effort on the part of a subscriber or traffic source to seize a circuit, regardless of whether attempt was successful or not. Successful Call - a call attempt that was successful in seizing a circuit. Answered Call - a successful call that reached the conversation phase. Traffic Density - aggregate engagement time or occupancy time of a traffic path at a given moment. Traffic Intensity - average traffic density during a measurement period. Also referred to as traffic. Erlang - a dimensionless unit to measure traffic intensity. For cellular systems, it is assumed to be on a base period of 60 minutes. Busy Hour - the hour of the day that traffic was at its peak. Grade of Service (GOS) - probability of calls being blocked due to lack of idle resources. Standard GOS for cells is 2%.

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

  

Blocked Call - call attempt that was unsuccessful because circuits could not be seized due to lack of idle resources. Time Congestion - the amount of time when all circuits are busy, i.e. no more idle resources, during a measurement period. Call Congestion - the number of call attempts that were blocked due to lack of idle resources during a measurement period.

Can you have Time Congestion without Call Congestion and/or vice-versa?

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

Offered Traffic - amount of traffic being offered to a particular element (e.g. cell). Practically, this represents the amount of intended traffic that subscribers want to use (cannot be measured from statistics). Carried Traffic - amount of traffic that is actually being handled by the element. Practically, this is the amount of traffic being measured by the element through statistics.

Offered Traffic

Network Element

Carried Traffic

Blocked/Lost Traffic

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

3. TRAFFIC THEORY
Erlang Theory  Derived by Danish mathematician A.K. Erlang  There are 3 main models:
   Erlang B - Blocked arrivals are immediately cleared. Erlang C - Blocked arrivals wait forever. Poisson - Blocked arrivals are held for a random time.

    

Poisson may be more accurate in reflecting actual dynamics, especially with fast rediallers. Erlang B also assumes call arrivals follow a Poisson arrival process. Is this practical in real life? In situations where traffic can be rerouted, thus the user does not perceive any effects, the Erlang B formulation is an excellent model. Bear in mind all these are just mathematical models! Actual performance is dependent on subscriber behavior. We will concentrate on the Erlang B model, which is more widely used

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

10

The Erlang B formula is given by:

A E(A,N) ! NN! i A i! i !0
where A = Offered traffic in Erlangs N = number of circuits

 

This formula gives us the probability of blocking given the number of circuits and offered traffic 1 Erlang is equivalent to 1 circuit busy for 1 hour; or 2 circuits busy for 30 minutes, etc..

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

11

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

12

A sample of an Erlang B table is given as follows:


Channels 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 1% 0.01 0.15 0.46 0.87 1.36 1.91 2.50 3.13 3.78 4.46 5.16 5.88 6.61 7.35 8.11 8.88 9.65 10.44 11.23 12.03 12.84 13.65 14.47 15.30 16.13 16.96 17.80 18.64 19.49 20.34 2% 0.02 0.22 0.60 1.09 1.66 2.28 2.94 3.63 4.34 5.08 5.84 6.61 7.40 8.20 9.01 9.63 10.66 11.49 12.33 13.16 14.04 14.90 15.76 16.63 17.51 18.38 19.27 20.15 21.04 21.93 3% 0.03 0.28 0.72 1.26 1.88 2.54 3.25 3.99 4.75 5.53 6.33 7.14 7.97 8.80 9.65 10.51 11.37 12.24 13.12 14.00 14.89 15.78 16.68 17.58 18.48 19.39 20.31 21.22 22.14 23.06 5% 0.05 0.38 0.90 1.52 2.22 2.96 3.74 4.54 5.37 6.22 7.08 7.95 8.83 9.73 10.63 11.54 12.46 13.39 14.32 15.25 16.19 17.13 18.08 19.03 19.99 20.94 21.90 22.87 23.83 24.80 10% 0.11 0.60 1.27 2.05 2.88 3.76 4.67 5.60 6.55 7.51 8.49 9.47 10.47 11.47 12.48 13.50 14.52 15.55 16.58 17.61 18.65 19.69 20.74 21.78 22.83 23.89 24.94 26.00 27.05 28.11 20% 0.25 1.00 1.93 2.95 4.01 5.11 6.23 7.37 8.52 9.69 10.86 12.04 13.22 14.41 15.61 16.81 18.01 19.22 20.42 21.64 22.84 24.06 25.26 26.50 27.72 28.94 30.16 31.39 32.61 33.84 40% 0.67 2.00 3.75 5.02 6.60 8.19 9.80 11.42 13.05 14.68 16.31 17.95 19.60 21.24 22.89 24.54 26.19 27.84 29.50 31.15 32.81 34.46 36.12 37.78 39.44 41.10 42.76 44.41 46.07 47.74

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

13

Programming issues  The Erlang B formula shown earlier is the more widely used version. However, it does not lend itself well to programming algorithms (the factorials alone make it cumbersome).  One possible solution is to use another version of the Erlang formula, the recursive formula:

1 N 1 ! 1 E ( A, N ) A E ( A, N  1)
  A recursive algorithm can then be used, where E(A,0) = 1 However, recursive formulas can take up a lot of processing and is potentially slow when N becomes large. This is especially true when doing algorithms for Offered Traffic and Number of Required Circuits.

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

14

A simpler algorithm uses a modified version of the Erlang formula:

1 E ( A, N ) ! N N ( N  1) N! 1   ......  N 2 A A A
Note: Round-off errors must be taken into consideration in all numerical calculations. However, problem now lies in getting Offered Traffic (given GOS and # Ccts) and # Ccts (given GOS and Offered Traffic). There is no simple formula for those 2 items. Exercise: figure out an algorithm on how to do that!

   

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

15

Another common Erlang B formula used is:

nT A! 3600
where A = Traffic (Erlangs) n = Number of call seizures T = Mean Holding Time

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

16

4. IMPLEMENTATION
    Now that the theory part is done with, how do we utilize traffic theory in an actual network environment? As capacity/expansion planners, we have to ensure sufficient resources are allocated to an element yet it must not be overkill! Most often, we design for load during the Busy Hour (BH). For the purpose of this course, I will define:
  Design Congestion - when an element has reached an offered traffic level greater than what it was designed to handle. Blocking - when an element experiences blocked calls as a result of lack of idle resources.

Looks like they are similar and tied to one another, but there are certain cases when they are not.

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

17

Sample Design Congestion  Take an element that has 7 circuits and an design GOS of 2%. From Erlang B table, this gives the design offered traffic (i.e. offered traffic element designed to handle) of 2.94 Erlangs.  This can be illustrated as follows:
Offered Traffic 2.94 E 7 circuits Carried Traffic 2.88 E

Blocked/Lost Traffic 0.06 E

   

Assuming subscribers actually offer 3.74 Erl, this means the design utilization is: 3.74/2.94 = 127%. This indicates the actual cell traffic has exceeded its design capacity. From Erlang B table, the GOS is actually 5.0%. If Design Utilization > 100%, its time to expand!

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

18

Other Practical Issues  Carried traffic CANNOT be more than the number of available circuits!  Example: if an element has 7 circuits available, then the maximum carried traffic possible is 7 Erlangs.  Another often used formula is Utilization, which is given by: Utilization (%) = Carried Traffic/Num of Ccts x 100%  However, this is just an indication of how busy/utilized the cell is and has no practical application as far as dimensioning goes.  Example:
CELL A Avail Cct Design GOS Design Off Traf Carried Traf Design Utilization Utilization 7 2% 2.94 4.00 136% 57% CELL B 14 2% 8.20 8.00 98% 57% CELL C 21 2% 14.04 13.00 93% 62%

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

19

Other Practical Issues  For the previous example, I used carried traffic as offered traffic. However, these two are different and should never be confused!  Erlang B tables are based on OFFERED TRAFFIC!  Consider this example:
Offered Traffic 10.7 E 7 circuits Carried Traffic 6.0 E

Blocked/Lost Traffic 4.7 E

  

Using Erlang B table, the number of required circuits to support 6 E at 2% GOS is 12, or 2 TRX. However, actual subscriber offered traffic is 10.7 E, which at 2% GOS requires 17 circuits or 3 TRX! If you had used carried traffic as your dimensioning basis, you would expand it to 2 TRX and STILL face congestion. Always convert carried traffic to offered traffic before using Erlang formulas.
Traffic Engineering 20

Cadet Engineer Program

  

So far, it looks like design congestion go hand-in-hand with blocking. However, design congestion is based on DEFINED circuits, not available circuits, as it is a dimensioning issue. Consider this example:
Def Cct Avail Cct Design GOS Design Off Traf Actual Off Traf Design Utilization Blocking (from stats) CELL A 14 14 2% 8.20 5 61% 0% CELL B 14 7 2% 8.20 5 61% 12%

 

For cell A, all looks normal and no expansion is needed. However, cell B is experiencing blocking but design congestion is less than 100%. Is this right? Do we need to expand cell B?

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

21

Trunking efficiency  Erlang B is not linear!  From a capacity viewpoint, an omni cell is better than a sectorized cell, with the same amount of TRXs.  Consider a 3-TRX (21 circuits) omni cell and three 1-TRX (7 circuits) sectorized cells. From Erlang B table at 2% GOS, 21 circuits can support 14.04 E while 7 circuits can support 2.94.  Therefore, total capacity of omni cell is 14.04 E while the sectorized cells are 3 x 2.94 = 8.82 E

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

22

Expansion Planning  Now that weve seen the various aspects involved, lets try a few sample cases: Case Study 1  Cell A has BH carried traffic of 5.8 E while Cell B has BH carried traffic of 5 E. Both have 1 TRX (7 channels) and a design GOS of 2%. Do we need to expand and if so, how many TRX for both cells?

Case Study 2  Cell C has BH carried traffic of 26 E and has 4 TRX (28 channels). For a design GOS of 2%, how many TRX are needed?

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

23

To summarize, expansion planning process is simple:


     Get carried traffic from stats Covert carried traffic to actual offered traffic Calculate design offered traffic from defined circuits and design GOS Calculate design utilization. If design utilization > 100%, then calculate required number of circuits and recommend expansion.

This process can be modified to include forecasts, i.e. convert carried traffic to offered traffic for a particular measurement period (e.g. 90 days) and get a trend. From trend, get offered traffic at a particular future point in time and then appropriate number of TRX needed to support that traffic with the design GOS.

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

24

Dimensioning  So far, this process has not considered dimensioning a new element (i.e. no traffic history). Also SMS planning is a slightly different ball game but can also be approximated using Erlang theory.  Most networks do not plan for SMS, dimensioning for voice traffic (TCH) is enough, with SDCCH set at default configurations. However, in Philippines, SMS dimensioning (SDCCH) is equally important.  To dimension a new element, other parameters are needed. These typically include BHCA (Busy Hour Call Attempts), MHT (Mean Holding Time) and Subscriber Traffic Usage.  Note that for dimensioning of this nature, assumptions and intelligent guesses are used.

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

25

 

Say, a new cell is being integrated. How much capacity should we allocate? First, we need to know how many subscribers (e.g. from marketing) are expected to use the cell during the BH. Lets take this to be 900 subs and design GOS=2%. We assume on average, each sub will make 1 BHCA and the MHT is 30 seconds. This gives us 900 BHCA. Remember the last Erlang formula? We now see the use for it. The estimated traffic is then : nT/3600 = (900 x 30)/3600 = 7.5 E. We would need 14 channels to support this. We can now see that 1 TRX is not sufficient. This cell needs 2 TRX on integration. All this is fine but what about SMS? Assume during BH, each subscriber on average makes or receives 8 text attempts and 1 location update. That makes it 10 SDCCH attempts during BH (why 10?). A typical SDCCH MHT is 4 seconds. So that give us (9000 x 4)/3600 = 10 E. We would require 17 channels to support this. Since 1 timeslot can support 8 SDCCH (remember SDCCH/8?), we would require 3 timeslots for this. Now, we need 1 timeslot for BCCH, 14 for TCH and 3 for SDCCH. That gives us 18 TS. Now we see that we need 3 TRX! So, the factor of SMS is important.

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

26

Summary  We have only touched on BTS (TRX) in all our examples.  In practice, there are lots of elements to consider for capacity planning, e.g. BTS (TRX), BSC, MSC, MSC-BSC (A-interface, transcoders), Interconnections, VMSC, SMSC, etc...  Capacity planning and dimensioning must be done carefully to ensure no bottlenecks appear in the network.  GOOD LUCK!

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

27

For the BTS 1. TRX a. Dedicated Channels TCH, SDCCH b. Control Channels Paging Channel, Access Grant Channel Random Access Channels 2. ABIS Load/TRX signaling load

For the BSC 1. Number of TRX in the BSC up to 256 TRX only 2. Number of BTS in the BSC up to 248 only 3. Processor Loading of the BCSUs - A factor of the Number of TRX per BCSU as well as theyre activity 4. Number of Ater (voice channels, from BSC-MSC, Signaling Link load between BSC and MSC)

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

28

Thats all for TRAFFIC ENGINEERING. Hope you all gained some valuable insights on this topic.

Cadet Engineer Program

Traffic Engineering

29

You might also like