ELE 4ACS/5PMC

Advanced Communication Systems and Personal Mobile

Communications

Lecture 2
Teletraffic Engineering
E.Custovic, School of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences

latrobe.edu.au

CRICOS Provider 00115M

Lecture topics:
Introduction
Australian Telco Background
Traffic aspects of wired networks
Traffic aspects of wireless/cellular networks
Basics of traffic engineering
Examples

Introduction:
*Teletraffic engineering is the application of traffic engineering theory to telecommunications.
Statistics including queuing theory, traffic type, practical models, measurements
and simulations are used to predict and plan telecommunication networks such as a telephone
networks or the Internet. These tools and knowledge help provide reliable service at lower cost.
Telecommunication networks are designed to carry telecommunication traffic (teletraffic).
Estimating traffic loads is an important task in the planning, design and operation phases of
networks.
A well dimensioned network provides a good balance between customer satisfaction and
investment.
Ongoing traffic studies form an important part of the process of operation and network
optimisation.

*Teletraffic
Engineering was
created based on
the work of Agner
Krarup Erlang
3

The right balance:

Coverage

Traffic
Quality of Service

A good network design philosophy strikes the right balance

between area coverage and traffic handling capacity. That is true
for both wired and wireless networks.
4

Australian Telco Background

Colonial Australia to Federation...establishment of Postmaster General (PMG), handled both
postage and communications
~ 33,000 phones across Australia in early 1900. A trunk line between Melbourne and Sydney was
established in 1907, with extension to Adelaide in 1914, Brisbane in 1923, Perth in 1930
and Hobart in 1935
1935.
Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC) was established in 1946 to handle international
communications while PMG handled everything domestic
1971 PMG broken up into Australian Post and Australian Telecommunications Commission (ATC)
which traded as Telcom Australia
1993 Telstra was established and inherited PMG/ATC and the OTC
Telstra was gradually privatised to bring in more investment in three stages (T1 (1997) 33%, T2
(1999) 16%, T3 (2006) 34%). The remainder of Telstra was sold of in 2009 and 2011
National Broadband Network (NBN Australias optical network), a bid was submitted by Telstra in
2008 and rejected by the government. In response, Telstra announced that it would increase speeds
on its NextG network and copper network above what the NBN would offer.
In 2011 NBN Co signed an agreement with Telstra. Telstra would disconnect its customer from the
copper network where NBN fibre was available. As part of the agreement, Telstra would not be able
to market their mobile network as an alternative to the NBN for a number of years
5

Linked to the world - Submarine Cables

Australia is linked with the world through several underwater
fibre-optic cables
Southern Cross Cables to New Zealand, Hawaii and the US
mainland with a capacity of 3.6Tbit/s (recent upgrade)
Australia-Japan Cable to Guam and Japan. Primarily used as
an alternative path to the United States with a capacity of
320Gbit/s.
Sea-Me-We3 to Indonesia and onto Asia, Middle East, the
United States and other destinations with a capacity of 480
Gbit/s/pair (two pairs).
Others:
Jasaraus
Gondwana-1
TASMAN-2
PPC-1
APNG2
Telstra Endeavour

APNG2
6

Fixed (wired) networks:

Typically, a network consists of a number of switching nodes

(exchanges) each supporting 10,000 users.
Network nodes are interconnected in one or more type of topology
(star, ring, mesh, etc.) using trunks.
The exact network topology and number of trunks depends on traffic
studies and market surveys.
Wrong assumptions can end up in catastrophic failure of service
provider
Telstra was/is Australias national telecom provider
Landlines have declined in usage over last 10 years.
7

Public Switched Telephone Networks (PSTN):

Connected from home via local loop (analogue) line to Central Office (CO) to PSTN via digital lines
RJ11 (Registered Jack) - The inner pair of wires is for line one and the outer pair is for line two.
Each wire in the pair has a name (tip and ring), and the two together provide a complete
connection to the local CO. Each pair of wires transmits voice, tones and power.
Enter Modem (Modulate-Demodulate), will be around until networks are completely digital
Integrated Services for Digital Network (ISDN) is a set of communication standards for
simultaneous digital transmission of voice, video, data, and other network services over the
traditional circuits of the

Two wired networks connected by 2 trunks:

Only two simultaneous inter-switch calls can be supported by this system.

2 x Trunks*
Switching
Node

Switching
Node

A trunk is a single transmission channel between two points, each point being
either the switching centre or the node.
Trunking is a method for a system to provide network access to many clients by
sharing a set of lines or frequencies instead of providing them individually.
9

Three wired networks connected in a ring topology:

2 x Trunks
Switching

Switching

Node

Node

Switching

2 x Trunks

10

Node

2 x Trunks

What is the advantage of this topology?

Simplified Telephone Switch

M Input
Lines

Switching
Network

N Output
Lines

Control

11

The switch is considered non-blocking if M = N

However, in reality this is rarely the case

Simplified Telephone Exchange

Terminating Line

Switch
Subs
Line
Circuit

(Common Equip)

Subs
Line
Circuit
Tone Generators & Processing Common Equip
Why do echoes occur in telephone systems?
12

Reflections due to impedance mismatch

O/G Trunks I/C Trunks

Subs
Line
Circuit

Originating Lines

Subs
Line
Circuit

Wireless network questions:

What is the density of users in a cell
What is the moving speed and direction of users in cell
How frequently are calls made
How many simultaneous calls are made
How long is the average call connection
What is the position of users with respect to the base
station
What type of traffic is being supported
What is the traffic in adjacent cells
How often does a handoff occur between cells
13

Wireless/Cellular networks:
A cellular network or mobile network is a wireless
network distributed over land areas called cells, each served by
at least one fixed-location transceiver, known as a cell
site or base station.
The network infrastructure (base station sites and the
interconnecting links) is similar to wired networks.
The mobility aspects of wireless networks adds more challenge
to the traffic engineering problem.
Radio channels are limited by the available spectrum, unlike
wired networks.
Physical transmission media like copper lines and fibre optic
cables can often be expanded, limited only by cost and terrain
nature.
Probability and statistics are the key to successful planning and
deployment of mobile networks
14

Uniformly distributed traffic:

Joining cells together provides radio coverage over a wide geographic area.

25 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

A mobile
base
station
network
25 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

22 x 25 = Total of 550 Erlang* of traffic

*Erlang -

15

is a dimensionless unit that is used in telephony as a measure of offered load or carried load
on service-providing elements such as telephone circuits or telephone switching equipment.

Morphology-based traffic distribution:

25 Erlangs

15 Erlangs

15 Erlangs

85 Erlangs

55 Erlangs

85 Erlangs

55 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

85 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

20 Erlangs

85 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

55 Erlangs

15 Erlangs

20 Erlangs

15 Erlangs

85 Erlangs

85 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

15 Erlangs

55 Erlangs

Total of 970 Erlang* of traffic

16

Morphology: water, forest, residential area, business area, etc.

Sectored base station sites:

25 Erlangs
25 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

25 Erlangs

15 Erlangs

45 Erlangs

Sectoring is one way of increasing the traffic handing capacity of a cell

17

Sectoring requires directional antennas (in this case 120o beamwidth (360/3))

What about in this case?

What beamwidth is required?

18

Cells are split to add channels:

Cell splitting is another way for increasing the

traffic handing capacity of a cellular network.

The traffic handling capacity of a

base station is normally limited by a
number of constraints, including
maximum number of transceivers,
transmitter combing, and cost.

19

Cell types/sizes:
There are five different cell sizes in a GSM networkmacro, micro, pico, femto,
and umbrella cells.

Macro Widest range of cells, found in rural

areas or along highways, antenna mounted high
off ground, typical power tens of Watts, coverage
is up to ~tens of km
Micro Provide additional capacity, antenna
mounted below the surrounding buildings and
terrain, coverage several hundred meters to ~2
km, typical power output several Watts
Pico localised coverage (shopping centres,
buildings, train stations and aeroplanes etc),
coverage up to ~200 m
Femto home or small business, coverage ~10m
20

Umbrella Cells:

21

Advantages of cellular networks

Cellular networks offer a number of desirable features:
More capacity than a single large transmitter, since the same
frequency can be used for multiple links as long as they are in
different cells
Mobile devices use less power than with a single transmitter or
satellite since the cell towers are closer
Larger coverage area than a single terrestrial transmitter, since
additional cell towers can be added indefinitely and are not limited
by the horizon

22

Model of a single server queue (M/M/1/):

Arrive according to a Poisson distribution (First M) and compete for the
service in a first-in-first-out (FIFO) manner (Second M), there is
only one server (1) and the queue can be infinite.

Buffer
Server

Packets arriving

23

Packets departing

Rate of packet arrival (packets/ time)

Rate of packet departure (packets/ time)
(2.4.7, Chapter 2, Agrawal 2010)

Throughput:

= Load

= throughput =

QUEUE
PB

PB is the blocking probability (0 1)

24

(1 - PB)

Call flow in a blocking system:

Calls

Carried

Repeated

Blocked

R
Abandoned

B: blocking probability
R: probability of re-attempt

There are two types of trunked systems utilised, Erlang B and Erlang C
25

Erlang B formula
Blocked Calls Cleared (BCC):

Calls that are blocked are dropped, no queue

Erlang B formula is used to calculate the blocking probability PB for

N available channels :
AN N!
PB = N

An n!

n =0

A:
offered traffic in Erlangs,
A = H
l : average rate of call arrival and
H: average holding time
N: number of channels available
PB: probability of blocking
PB is grade of service GoS (0.01 is better than 0.1)

26

Note:
Blocking of a call is
due to network
congestion, i.e. No
available path is
found to the
called party.

Example: A channel has the capacity to be used for 60 minutes in 1 hour.

If one hundred 6 minute calls are received on a group of such channels,
then the total traffic in that hour is six hundred minutes or 10 erlangs.

Erlang/Number of channels/Grade of
Service:

27

Erlang B chart:

28

Erlang C
Blocked Calls Delayed (BCD)

Blocked calls are held in a queue and delayed. Also

assume that blocked callers dont hang up

A n
P = n =1 xn! n n A
A A n
+
n = 0 x!
n! n A
P = Probability of blocking
A = Traffic density in Erlangs
x = Number of busy channels
n = Number of servers

29

Erlang C chart:

30

Teletraffic Engineering
In general, the purpose of teletraffic engineering is to
maximise the utilisation of the common equipment of the
network, which includes switches, trunks, dial tone
generators, transmission bandwidth, etc.
The call handling capacity of a switching system is usually
expressed as the maximum number of the originating and
incoming calls that can be processed in the busy-hour
while meeting the grade of service (GoS) requirement.

31

Traffic Parameters
In order to administer a telecommunication system, information
is required about three variables:
Grade of Service (GoS) is the percentage of calls that
encounter some form of blockage. (Hence smaller GoS =
better service)
Traffic Load or intensity, is expressed as the quantity of traffic
presented to a trunk group during the busy-hour. The unit of
traffic intensity is the Erlang (or hundreds of call seconds CCS
in the US).
Quantity of Trunks (or servers)

32

The busy-hour:
The busy-hour (BH) is defined as the period of the day
when traffic intensity is at its peak.
That period does not necessarily have to be one hour
The busy-hour figure is used in network dimensioning
along with the grade-of-service figure.
The grade of service is calculated according to the BH

33

Grade of Service (GoS):

The probability of being blocked on the first attempt
during the busy hour is referred to as the GoS.
The network switch congestion is the issue not that the
called party is busy with another call.
When the network is congested, the calling subscriber
receives congestion tone
For example, for a GoS of 0.005, it is probable that 5 calls
in 1000 will be blocked at first attempt. (Very unlikely in
Australia unless trying to make a call during New Years Eve)

34

Example of Voice Traffic

Busy Hour

No. of Calls (K)

110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
35

12

15

18

21

24

The Erlang (unit of teletraffic)

The unit of teletraffic is the Erlang, named after A. K. Erlang of
Copenhagen Telephone Company.
Traffic intensity is measured in units of Erlang.
Erlang is related to issues of network planning with the
objective of satisfying a particular GoS.
Traffic density is measured in Erlang-hour, which is the area
under the curve (previous slide).
Erlang-hour is associated with revenue matters of the service
provider.

36

Simple Erlang Meter

Line circuit
SW

- 50 Volts
Erlang

37

A switch is closed when its line circuit is busy

Maximum reading when all nine circuits are busy

Traffic Intensity
Traffic Intensity =

the sum of circuit holding time

the duration of the monitoring period
Nc

I=

h
i =1

Nch
=
= nc h
T

I = traffic intensity
T = duration of monitoring period
hi = the holding time of the i-th individual call
N c = the total number of calls in monitoring period
h = average call holding time, and
nc = number of calls per unit time
38

Erlangs

Example 1
To determine voice traffic on a line, the following data was
collected during a period of 90 minutes.
Calculate the traffic intensity in Erlangs.

39

Call No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Duration of Call (s)

60
74
80
90
92
70
96
48
64
126

Solution 1
The average call arrival rate:
10calls
10
calls
=
= 6.667
1.5hours

calls/hour

The average holding time:

60 + 74 + 80 + 90 + 92 + 70 + 96 + 48 + 64 + 126
h=
= 80 seconds
10
Traffic Intensity:
6.667
I=
80 = 0.148
3600
40

Erlangs

Example 2
The data presented below were recorded by observing the activity of a single
customer line during the 8-hour period from 9:00 am to 5:00 p.m.

41

Call No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

Call Started
9:15
9:31
10:17
10:24
10:37
10:55
12:01
2:09
3:15
4:01
4:38

Call Terminated
9:18
9:41
10:24
10:34
10:42
11:00
Determine traffic intensity during:
12:02
1. the 8-hour period
2:14
2. the busy-hour (between 4:00
3:30
p.m. and 5:00 p.m.)
4:35
4:43

Solution 2
Call Arrival Rate:

11calls
=
= 1.375
8hours

Total call minutes:

= 3 + 10 + 7 + 10 + 5 + 5 + 15 + 15 + 34 + 5 = 100

calls/hour

minutes

Average holding time:

100 min 1hour

h=

= 0.1515
11calls 60 min

hour/call

Traffic Intensity:

I = 1.375 0.1515 = 0.208

42

Erlangs

Solution - Busy Hour

During the busy-hour the call arrival rate:

=2
The average call holding time during the busy-hour:

(
34 + 5) min
h=
2calls

= 19.5

19.5
h=
= 0.325
60

minutes/call
hour/call

Traffic Intensity in BH:

I = 2 0.325 = 0.65
43

Erlangs

Example 3:
How many users can be supported for 0.5% blocking
probability for the following number of
trunks/channels in a blocked call cleared system?
1
5
10
20
100

Assume each user generates 0.1 Erlangs of traffic

44

Solution 3:

Using the formulas:

For GoS = 0.5% (0.005) :

Channels
1
5
10
20
100

Erlangs Users
1
1.13
3.96
11.1
80.9

Full Erlang B table can be found on

LMS under Additional material

45

Au = H

1
11
39
111
809

A = UAu Ac = UAu C
H: average holding time
: call arrival rate

Calculating traffic loads:

Traffic intensity offered by a user:
Au = H

Total traffic offered by U users:

For equally distributed traffic loads:

A = UAu
Ac = UAu C

46

Example 4:
An urban area has a population of 2 million residents. A, B, and
C are 3 competing cellular mobile networks that provide service
in this area.
System A has 394 cells with 19 channels each,
System B has 98 cells with 57 channels each,
System C has 49 cells with 100 channels each
Find the number of users that can be supported at 2% GoS,
average 2 calls/hr and 3 minutes holding time

47

Solution 4:
Traffic intensity per user = 0.1 Erlang
For GoS 0.02 and 19 circuits, a cell can support a total
of 12 Erlangs
If each user generates an average of 0.1 Erlang, then
120 users can be supported in a cell
System A can support 120x394 = 47,280 users
What about System B and C?
Which system would be more suitable for the CBD of
Melbourne and Regional Victoria?
48

References
1.
2.

49

Flood, J.E., Telecommunication Networks, The IEE, London, 1998.

Green, James Harry, The Irwin Handbook of Telecommunications
Management, 2nd Ed., Irwin Professional Publishing, Pantel Inc.
1996