Telecommunication Engineering

Course: ETE 4215

Md. Tarek Hassan

Lecturer
Dept. of ETE
Rajshahi University of Engineering & Technology
(RUET)
 Today’s Agenda

1.Traffic Engineering concept and its necessity

2.Traffic Patterns
3.Important Definitions
4.Related Math

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 2

 Traffic Engineering

Traffic engineering is a method of optimizing the performance

of a telecommunication network.

❖ Analyzing
❖ Predicting
❖ Regulating the behavior of data transmitted over that
network.

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 3

 Traffic Engineering

Cost effective networks that

provide the QoS under varied
traffic condition

Carrying a given traffic at

particular loss probability

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 4

 Traffic Engineering

❖ Traffic Engineering balances the following factors based

on given amount of traffic.
• Grade of Service (GoS)
• Resources

❖ Two types of systems implemented to provide voice

communications.
• Blocking System
• Delay Systems

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 5

 Traffic Engineering

# Key Terms for Traffic Engineering

➢ Switching elements
➢ Availability or Non-availability of switching paths
➢ Subscriber line condition (free or busy)
➢ Usual Traffic patterns
➢ Traffic Volume
The traffic pattern contains the information of the communication
between the nodes in the network. Knowledge of the traffic patterns
are therefore critical for optimizing the performance of the
architecture
TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 6
 Traffic Engineering

Figures: Usual traffic pattern

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 7

 Traffic Engineering

Need to know!

✓ Traffic Unit: Erlang (Detailed)

✓ Busy Hour Traffic
✓ What do you mean by 1 Erlang?
✓ Busy Hour Terminologies

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 8

 Traffic Engineering

✓ Traffic Unit: Erlang (Detailed)

Erlangs: Traffic intensity in terms of the number of hours of
resource time required per hour of elapsed time.
CCS (Centum Call Seconds): Traffic intensity as the Erlangs
but expresses it as the number of 100 second holding times
required per hour.

36 CCS = 1 Erlang = 60 CM

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY MTH 9

 Traffic Engineering

Erlangs: Traffic intensity in terms of the number of hours of

resource time required per hour of elapsed time.

1 hour of continuous use of 1 channel = 1 Erlang (E)

1 Erlang (E) = 1 Hour (60 minutes) of traffic

In Data Communications, 1E = 64 kbps of data

In Telephone networks, 1E = 60 mins = 1*3600 call seconds

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY MTH 10

 Traffic Engineering

Basic Problem: A call established at 1 a.m. between a mobile

and MSC. Assuming a continuous connection and data
transfer rate at 30 kbit/s. Determine the traffic intensity if the
call is terminated at 1.50 a.m.

Hints:
𝐧𝐨. 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐬 × 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 ∗ 𝟏 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐚𝐥
𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐝 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐲 =
𝟔𝟎 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐚𝐥

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY MTH 11

 Traffic Engineering
Important Definitions:

Busy Hour: In a day, the 60 minute interval in which the traffic is

highest.
1 Erlang: It is used to describe the total traffic volume of one hour in
a day.

Peak Busy Hour: The busy hour each day, it usually varies from day
to day or over number of days.

Time Consistent Busy Hour: The 1 hour period starting at the same
time each day for which the average traffic volume or the number of
call attempts is greatest over the days under consideration.
TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY MTH 12
 Traffic Engineering
Important Definitions:

Successful Call: A call attempt is successful if the called party answers.

▪ Busy hour calling rate (BHCA) : the number of call attempts in busy
hour.
▪ Call completion rate (CCR): ratio of the number of successful calls
to the number of call attempts.
▪ Busy Hour Calling Rate (BHCR): average number of calls
originated by a subscriber during the busy hour.

𝑨𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒈𝒆 𝑩𝒖𝒔𝒚 𝑯𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝑪𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒔 = 𝑩𝑯𝑪𝑨 × 𝑪𝑪𝑹

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY MTH 13
 Traffic Engineering

Mathematical Problems:

Problem-01: There are 100 subscribers with the following telephone

traffic profile: 20 make 1 call/hour for 6 minutes; 20 make 3 call/hour
for a half a minute; 60 make 1 call/hour for 1 minute. Calculate the
total traffic of the following profile.

Problem-02: An exchange serves 2000 subscribers. If the average

BHCA is 10,000 and the CCR is 60%, calculate the Busy Hour Call
Rate.

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY MTH 14

 Traffic Engineering

❑ All common subsystems of a telecommunication network

are collectively termed as servers.
❑ Term link and trunk can also be used.
❑ Occupancy of servers in a network is termed as traffic
intensity

Period for which a server is occupied

Traffic Intensity, A0 =
Total period of observation

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY MTH 15

 Traffic Engineering

Mathematical Problems:

Traffic Intensity Problem!

Problem-03: 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.

Solve it now by yourself!!

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY MTH 16

 Traffic Engineering

Mathematical Problems:

Problem-04: A group of 20 servers carry a traffic of 10

Erlangs. If the average duration of a call is 3 minutes,
Calculate the number of calls put through by a single server
and the group as a whole in a one hour period.

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY MTH 17

 Traffic Engineering

Mathematical Problems:

Problem-05: A subscriber makes 3 phone calls of 3 minutes,

4 minutes and 2 minutes duration in a one hour period.
Calculate the subscriber traffic in erlang, CCS and CM.

Hints:
𝐵𝑢𝑠𝑦 𝑃𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑑
Subscriber Traffic =
𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑃𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑑

1E = 36 CCS = 3600 CS = 60 CM

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY MTH 18

 Traffic Engineering

Traffic Intensity also named as call time product, network

load:
✓ Average call arrival rate, 𝐶
✓ Average holding time per call, 𝑡ℎ
✓ Load offered to the traffic, 𝐴 = 𝐶 × 𝑡ℎ

Problem-06: 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.

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY MTH 19

 Traffic Engineering

Two major systems used for Traffic Engineering:

1. Loss Systems: CKT switch networks
2. Delay Systems: Packet switch networks

Quiz:
1. Block in which systems?
2. Congestion in which systems?

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY MTH 20

 Traffic Engineering

Grade of Service (GoS):

➢ Grade of Service (GoS) is the ratio of lost traffic to the

offered traffic.
➢ Offered traffic, 𝐴 = 𝐶 ∗ 𝑡ℎ
➢ 𝐴0 denotes the carried traffic
➢ (𝐴 – 𝐴0 ) defines the lost traffic

𝐴 − 𝐴0
Grade of Service, GoS =
𝐴

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY MTH 21

 Traffic Engineering

Blocking Probability:

The blocking probability 𝑃𝐵 , is defined as the probability that

all the servers in a system are busy.

When all the servers are busy, no further traffic can be carried
by the system and the arriving subscriber traffic is blocked.

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY MTH 22

 Traffic Engineering

Difference between GoS and 𝑷𝑩 :

Grade of Service (GoS) Blocking Probability, 𝑃𝐵

1. Measure from the subscriber 1. Measure from the network or
point of view switching system point of view.
2. Call Congestion 2. Time Congestion
3. Loss Probability 3. Blocking Probability

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY MTH 23

 Traffic Engineering
Flow Control:
An easy way of bringing the system back to stable region of operation is to
make it behave like a loss system until the queued up traffic is cleared to an
acceptable limit. This technique of maintaining the stable operation is called
flow control.

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY MTH 24

 Traffic Engineering
Quality of Service (QoS)
The use of mechanisms or technologies that work on a network to control
traffic and ensure the performance of critical applications with limited
network capacity. It enables organizations to adjust their overall network
traffic by prioritizing specific high-performance applications.

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY MTH 25

 Traffic Engineering

Quality of Service (QoS)

The goal of QoS is to provide preferential delivery service for

the applications that need it by:
▪ ensuring sufficient bandwidth,
▪ controlling latency and jitter, and
▪ reducing data loss.

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY MTH 26

 Traffic Engineering

Quality of Service (QoS) Approach

• Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF): TCP and IP

• Integrated Service (IntServ): RSV protocol, best effort
• Differentiated Service (DiffServ): Priority based

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY MTH 27

 Traffic Engineering

Modeling Switching Systems:

Subscribers generate calls in a random manner. The call generation by
the subscribers and therefore the behavior of the network or the
switching systems in it-can be described as a random process.

A random process or a stochastic process is one in which one or more

quantities vary with time in such a way that the instantaneous values
of the quantities are not determinable precisely but are predictable
with certain probability.

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY MTH 28

 Traffic Engineering
Modeling Switching Systems:
The quantities are called random variables. Thus, a stochastic process
is a time indexed function of one or more random variables. It is
generally possible to characterize the behavior of a random process by
some statistical properties and thus predict the future performance
with a certain probability.

The telephone traffic qualifies as a stochastic process. where the

number of simultaneously active subscribers and the number of
simultaneously busy servers. The busy servers are called Random
Variables.
TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY MTH 29
 Traffic Engineering
Modeling Switching Systems:
In the case of telephone traffic, the random variable representing the
number of simultaneous calls can take on only discrete values whereas
a random variable representing temperature variations in an
experiment can take on continuous values.

Types of stochastic/Random processes:

• Continuous time continuous rate
• Continuous time discrete rate
• Discrete time continuous rate
• Discrete time discrete rate
TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY MTH 30
 Traffic Engineering
Modeling Switching Systems:
Time Statistical Parameters: By observing its behavior over a very long period.

Ensemble Statistical Parameters: By observing simultaneously, a very large

number of statistically identical random sources at any given instant of time.

• Random processes whose statistical parameters do not change with time are
known as stationary processes.

• Condition that must be satisfied is that all random processes in the ensemble
must have identical statistical properties.

• The random processes which have identical time and ensemble averages are
known as ergodic processes.
TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 31
 Traffic Engineering

Question!!
“The behavior of a switching system can also be modeled as a
stochastic process” Justify this statement.

Hints:
The number of servers busy simultaneously is a discrete random
variable. The time at which a server becomes busy or free also exhibits
a random behavior, and hence the entire s system can be modelled as a
random process.

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 32

 Traffic Engineering

Markov process is a stochastic model describing a sequence of possible events in

which the probability of each event depends only on the state attained in the
previous event. A countably infinite sequence, in which the chain moves state at
discrete time steps, gives a discrete-time Markov chain.

Car Racing

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 33

 Traffic Engineering

Markov process is geometrically distributed when it’s in discrete time and

exponentially distributed when in continuous time.
Birth-death processes are very useful in our analysis of telecommunication
networks. A telecommunication network can be modelled as a B-D Process.
Questions:
• Derive the steady state equations of B-D process (***)
• Derive the steady state equations of pure Death process
• Derive the steady state equations of pure Birth process

Clues for 1st question:

1. Use Fig. 8.4 as reference
2. Equation from 8.5 to 8.10 and 8.11
TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 34
 Traffic Engineering
Incoming Traffic Issues!
Whenever a subscriber originates a call, he adds one to the number of calls
arriving at the network and has no way by which he can reduce the number of
calls that have already arrived. We are thus in need of a model that describes an
originating process.

Interestingly, this process can be treated as a special case of the B-D process in
which the death rate is equal to zero.

In other words, there is no death occurring in the process. Such a process is

known as a renewal process. it is a pure birth process in the sense that it can only
add to the population as the time goes by and cannot deplete the population by
itself.
TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 35
 Traffic Engineering

Pure Birth Process

The equations governing the dynamics of a renewal process can be easily arrived
at from the B-D process equations by setting, µ𝑘 = 0

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 36

 Traffic Engineering
Poisson Process

If we assume a constant birth rate A which is independent of the state

of the system, then we get a Poisson process. The governing
equations of a Poisson process are

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 37

 Traffic Engineering

Equation (8.16) is the most celebrated Poisson arrival process equation. The
equation expresses the probability of finding t system with k members in the
population at time t. In other words, it represents the probability of k arrivals in the
time interval t.
TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 38
 Traffic Engineering

Mathematical Problems:

Example 8.6: A rural telephone exchange normally

experiences four call originations per minute. What is the
probability that exactly eight calls occur in an arbitrarily
chosen interval of 30 seconds?

Hint:
𝜆𝑡 𝑘 𝑒 −𝜆𝑡
Formula: 𝑃𝑘 𝑡 =
𝑘!

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 39

Traffic Engineering

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 40

 Traffic Engineering

Poisson Process

we may describe the Poisson process as follows:

• A pure birth process with constant birth rate
• A birth-death process with zero death rate and a constant birth rate
• A Markov process with state transitions limited to the next higher
state or to the same state, and having a constant transition rate

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 41

 Traffic Engineering

Real Life application of Poisson process as follows:

• Number of telephone calls arriving at an exchange
• Number of coughs generated in a medical ward by the patients
• Number of rainy days in a year
• Number of typing errors in a manuscript
• Number of bit errors occurring in a data communication system.

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 42

 Traffic Engineering

Mathematical Problems:

Example 8.7

A switching system serves 10,000 subscribers with a traffic

intensity of 0.1 E per subscriber. If there is a sudden spurt in
the traffic, increasing the average traffic by 50%, what is the
effect on the arrival rate?

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 43

 Traffic Engineering

Poisson Process
The telephone calls arriving at an exchange follow a Poisson process.
But the process of call generation by the subscribers is not a Poisson
process and is a renewal process.

Superimposition of a large number of renewal processes results in a

Poisson process. This is why we observe Poisson processes in nature,
whenever we study the aggregate behavior of a large population. All
examples of Poisson processes stated previous slides represent this
phenomenon.

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 44

 Traffic Engineering
Pure Death Process

In a system modelled as a B-D process, the termination phenomenon

can be characterized as a pure death process. We obtain a pure death
process from a B-D process by setting the birth rate equal to zero.

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 45

 Traffic Engineering

Blocking Models and Loss Estimates:

The behavior of loss systems is studied by using blocking models and

that of the delay systems by using queuing models.

we are concerned with three aspects while dealing with the analysis of
the telecommunication systems:

• Modelling the system

• Traffic arrival model
• Service time distribution
TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 46
 Traffic Engineering

What happens to the overflow traffic that is rejected?

There are three ways in which overflow traffic may be handled:

• The traffic rejected by one set of resources may be cleared by
another set of resources in the network.
• The traffic may return to the same resource after sometime.
• The traffic may be held by the resource as if being serviced but
actually serviced only after the resources become available.

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 47

 Traffic Engineering

What happens to the overflow traffic that is rejected?

Corresponding to the above three cases, we consider three models of

loss systems:
• Lost calls cleared (LCC)
• Lost calls returned (LCR)
• Lost calls held (LCH)

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 48

 Traffic Engineering
Lost calls cleared (LCC)
Lost Calls Cleared (LCC) System model assumes that, the subscriber
who does not avail the service, hangs up the call, and tries later. The
next attempt is assumed as a new call. Hence, the call is said to be
cleared. This also referred as blocked calls lost assumption.

Whenever a direct trunk group between two switching offices is busy,

it is possible to divert the traffic via other switching offices using
different trunk groups. In this way, the blocked calls in one trunk
group are cleared via other trunk groups. [Trunk behavior assumption]

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 49

 Traffic Engineering
Lost calls cleared (LCC)

The LCC model is used as a standard for the design and analysis of
telecommunication networks in Europe, India and other countries that
adopt European practices.

The main purpose of the analysis is to estimate the blocking

probability, and the grade of service.

Blocking Probability, 𝑃𝐵 Versus Grade of Service, GoS

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 50

 Traffic Engineering
Lost calls cleared (LCC)

State and Prove the Erlang B formula

Equation 8.33 to 8.38

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 51

 Traffic Engineering
Lost calls Returned (LCR)
The rejected calls in such cases do return to the system in the form of
retries with the result that the offered traffic now comprises two
components:

Offered Traffic = new traffic + retry traffic

The model used for analysis is known as lost calls

returned (LCR) model. We proceed with the analysis by making the
following assumptions with regard to the nature of the returning calls:

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 52

 Traffic Engineering
Lost calls Returned (LCR)

Offered Traffic = new traffic + retry traffic

• No new call is generated when a blocked call is being retried.

• A number of retry attempts may be involved before a call
eventually gets serviced.
• Retries are attempted after a random time and each retry time is
statistically independent of the others.
• Typical waiting time before a retry is longer than the average
holding time.

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 53

 Traffic Engineering
Lost calls Held (LCH) System
Lost calls held (LCH) systems are distinctly different from delay systems
where the messages are queued and taken up for service as and when
resources are available. The time a call spends in a delay system is the sum
of the waiting time and the service time.

In the LCH model, the total time spent in the system is independent of the
waiting-time and is only determined by the average service time required.
As soon as a call arrives in the system, it requires service continuously for a
period of time and terminates after that time irrespective of whether it is
being actually serviced or not. If a call is blocked, a portion of it is lost until
a server becomes free to service the call.
TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 54
 Traffic Engineering

Mathematical Problems:
Example 8.8: In a telephone system, there are 20 servers and 100
subscribers. On an average, there are 10 busy servers at any time.
The probability of all the servers being busy is 0.2. Calculate the
grade of service assuming (a) Erlang traffic, and (b) Engest traffic

Example 8.9: A TASI system has 10 channels and 20 sources

connected to it. What is the probability of clipping if the activity
factor for each source is 0.4?

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 55

 Traffic Engineering
Delay Systems

A class of telecommunication networks, such as data networks, places

the call or message arrivals in a queue in the absence of resources, and
services them as and when resources become available. Servicing is
not taken up until the resource becomes available. Such systems are
known as delay systems which are also called lost call delayed (LCD)
systems.

Delay systems are analyzed using queuing theory which is sometimes

known as waiting line theory.

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 56

 Traffic Engineering
Delay Systems

The theory is now-a-days used for the analysis of a wide variety of

applications outside telecommunications.
Examples of delay systems in telecommunications include the
following:

❖ Message switching
❖ Packet switching
❖ Digit receiver access
❖ Automatic call distribution
❖ Call processing.
TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 57
Traffic Engineering

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 58

 Traffic Engineering
Delay Systems
Assuming that a delay system has infinite queue capacity in an
operational sense, a necessary condition for its stable operation is as
follows:

If this condition is not satisfied, the queue length would become

infinite sooner or later, and the system would never be able to clear
the traffic offered to it.
TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 59
 Traffic Engineering

Questions: What do you mean by A/B/c/K/m/Z Parameters?

A queuing system is characterized by a set of six parameters. This

notation uses letters to identify the parameters. The notation reads
as A/B/c/K/m/Z. The parameter specifications are as follows:

A = arrival process specification

B = service time distribution
c = number of servers
K = queue capacity
m = number of sources (input population)
Z = service discipline
TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 60
 Traffic Engineering
Delay Systems

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING | PREPARED BY M. T. HASSAN 61