Mobile Communication Systems

Part III- Traffic Engineering

Contents

• Problems + Design Considerations

• Grade of Services (GOS)
• Traffic Intensity
• Efficiency Measure
• Cellular Transcceiver
Traffic Theory
Depends on the type of traffic in the network
– Circuit switched network
• with homogenous traffic
• with heterogeneous traffic

– Packet switched network

• with homogenous traffic
• with heterogeneous traffic

• Homogeneous type: Describe the classical telecommunication

services based on voice transmission and switching
• Heterogeneous type: Includes integrated traffic streams from
different sources (voice, audio, video, data) into a single
network
Traffic Theory
• Covers specific types of random processes in
telecommunications
– Average connection duration
– Average number of users
– Busy time
– Service time
– Call arrival
Traffic Engineering

• Required in telecommunications network planning to ensure that

network costs are minimised without compromising the quality of
service delivered to the user of the network.
– It is based on probability theory and can be used to analyse mobile radio
networks as well as other telecommunications networks.
• Mobile radio networks have traffic issues that do not arise in the fixed
line PSTN. A mobile handset, moving in a cell, receives a signal with
varying strength. This signal strength is subject to:
– slow fading,
– fast fading
– interference from other signals,
thus resulting in degradation of the carrier-to-interference (C/I) ratio.
– A high C/I ratio results in quality communication.
• A good C/I ratio is achieved by using optimum power levels through
the power control of most links.
– When carrier power is too high, excessive interference is created, degrading the C/I ratio
for other traffic and reducing the traffic capacity of the radio subsystem.
– When carrier power is too low, C/I is too low and QoS targets are not met.
Traffic Engineering
• Traffic engineering balances the following factors based on given
amount of traffic
• Grade of Service (GOS)
• Resources (e.g. trunk channels)
• Two types of systems implemented to provide voice
communications
– Blocking
• Voice or data is blocked (by a busy signal) if network
resource (e.g trunk channel) is not available.
• GOS = Blocking probability
– Delay System
• Voice or data is queued until network resource is available
• GOS = Queueing Probability and average time in queue
Traffic Engineering – Terminologies
• Holding Time - the length of time that a resource is being held (e.g the duration
of a phone call)
• Traffic volume - for an interval is the sum of all the traffic holding times for that
interval
• Traffic intensity = traffic volume / time interval which is a measure of demand
• Erlang - describe traffic intensity in terms of the number of hours of resource
time required per hour of elapsed time. It is dependent on the observation time;
e.g., If the observation time is 10 minutes, and the facility is in use for the
full time, then that is 1 Erlang
• CCS( Centum Call Seconds) - measures the exact same traffic intensity as the
Erlangs but expresses it as the number of 100 second holding times required per
hour. E.g.,
10 mins of traffic = 600 seconds
= 600 sec./100 = 6 CC
Traffic Engineering – Terminologies
• Arrival Rater - is the number of calls that will arrive at a facility during a
finite time period.

• Poisson Arrival Process - is the most common assumption used in traffic

engineering for the distribution of call arrivals. People calling to a line
group often do so at random, with each call independent of the others.

• Blocking - occurs whenever the number of calls, in or out, exceeds the

number of facilities (lines, trunks, agents, operators) available to support
them. Blocking probability is expressed as a percentage of denial, e.g. for 1
call in 100 blocked, it is expressed as P.01 (1% of the offered calls will
expect to be blocked).
• Queuing - waiting in a holding facility until a server becomes available.
Traffic Engineering – Decision Tree

The factors dictating the formula

that best applies to a given situation
include source population (finite or
infinite), holding time distribution
(constant or exponential), and call
disposition when all servers are
busy (blocked or queued).

Three most widely uses formula

types:
• Blocking formulas that assume
infinite sources
• Blocking formulas that assume
finite sources
• delay formulas
Traffic Measurement Unites
• Erlangs: Traffic intensity (named after of a Danish mathematician) is the average
number of calls simultaneously in progress over a certain time. It is a dimensionless
unit.

one hour of continuous use of one channel = 1 Erlang

• 1 Erlang = 1 hour (60 minutes) of traffic

– In data communications, an 1 E = 64 kbps of data

– In telephone, 1 Erlang = 60 mins = 1 x 3600 call seconds

• % of Occupancy

A.K. Erlang, 1878-1929

Erlangs - Example
• For example, if a group of user made 30 calls in one
hour, and each call had an average call duration of 5
minutes, then the number of Erlangs this represents
is worked out as follows:

Minutes of traffic in the hour = number of calls x duration

Minutes of traffic in the hour = 30 x 5
Minutes of traffic in the hour = 150
Hours of traffic in the hour = 150 / 60
Hours of traffic in the hour = 2.5
Traffic figure = 2.5 Erlangs
Traffic Capacity
 Quality of services provides by different service
providers
 Traffic congestion and blocking
 Probability of waiting before a call is connected
 Dominant coverage area
 C/I
 Dropped call rate
 Handover failure rate,
 Overall call success rate ...
All these can be explained by the Quality of Service
(QOS)
Factors Affecting QoS
• The standard metrics of QoS to the user that can be measured to rate
the QoS are:
– Coverage: the strength of the measured signal is used to estimate the size of the
cell.

– accessibility (includes Grade of Service (GOS): is about determining the ability of

the network to handle successful calls from mobile-to-fixed networks and from
mobile-to-mobile networks.
• Connection duration of call is in tens of seconds or minutes
• Packet transmission or serving measured in milliseconds or even microseconds
• User movement measured in seconds, minutes or hours.

– audio quality: monitoring a successful call for a period of time for the clarity of
the communication channel.
GOS
 Are mechanisms for controlling the performance, reliability and
usability of a telecommunications service.
 Is a measure of the call blocking in voice traffic, where resources
allocation is deterministic (allocation and switching of channels)
or
 The ability to make call during the busiest time
 Is typically given as the likelihood that a call is blocked or the
likelihood of a call experiencing a delay greater than a certain
queuing time.
 Is determined by the available number of channels and used to
estimate the total number of users that a network can support.
For example, if GOS = 0.05, one call in 20 will be blocked
during the busiest hour because of insufficient capacity
Cellular GOS
• In general, GOS is measured by:
– looking at traffic carried,
– traffic offered
– calculating the traffic blocked and lost.
The proportion of lost calls is the measure of GOS.
GOS = Number of lost calls / Number of offered calls
• For cellular circuit groups GOSacceptable = 0.02. I.e. at busy
period, 2 users out of 100 will encounter a call refusal.
• GOS is calculated using the Erlang-B formula, as a function of
the number of channels required for the offered traffic
intensity.
• There is a trade-off between the QoS and channel utilization.
Traffic Intensity
Is a measure of the average occupancy of a resource during a
specified period of time, normally a busy hour.
The traffic intensity generated by a single user is:

A  H Erlangs
H is the average holding time of a call
 = Average service time = average number of call requested/hour
A is generated according to the Poisson model with inter-arrival time λ (negative
exponential)
A=λ/ Erlangs
If there are U users and an unspecified number of channels.
The total offered traffic intensity is:
AT  UA Erlangs
Busy hours traffic: Calls/busy hours *Mean call hold time
Traffic Intensity - contd.
In a trunks system of C channels and equally distributed
traffic among the channels, the traffic intensity per
channel is:

Ac  UA / C Erlangs/channels

The traffic volume

is a measure of the total work done by a resource or
facility, normally over 24 hours
VT = A * T Erlangs-Hours
Example I
A call established at 1am 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 1.50am.

Solution:
Traffic intensity = (1 call)*(50 mins)*(1 hour/60 min) = 0.833 Er

Note, traffic intensity has nothing to do with the data rate, only the
holding time is taken into account.
Note:
• If the traffic intensity > 1 Erlang: The incoming call rate exceeds the
outgoing calls, thus resulting in queuing delay which will grow without bound
(if the traffic intensity stays the same).
• If the traffic intensity is < 1 Erlang, then the network can handle more
average traffic.
Example II
• Consider a PSTN which receives 240 calls/hr. Each call lasts an average
of 5 minutes. What is the outgoing traffic intensity to the public
network.

Solution

A =  *H
 = 240 calls/hr and H = 5 minutes

A = (240 calls /hr) x (5 min/call) = 1200 min/hr

Erlang cannot have any unit so

A= 1200 min/hr * (1 hour/60 minutes) = 20 Erlangs

So 20 hours of circuit talk time is required for every hour of elapsed time. An
average of T1 voice circuits busy at any time is 20. (Or 20 hours of continuous
use of 20 channels.)
Offered Traffic

Busy Hour Call Attempts (BHCA)

• Used to evaluate and plan capacity for telephone networks
• Is the number of telephone calls made at the peak hour
• The higher the BHCA, the higher the stress on the network
processors.
• Not to be confused with Busy Hour Call Completion (BHCC), which
truly measures the throughput capacity of the network.
Traffic Intensity – contd.
• Quality of service (QoS) is expressed in terms of blocking
probability as:
PB  ( A  C )
Where B = Erlang – B Formula; A = The traffic intensity; C = No of channels (lines)

The offered traffic: Volume of traffic offered to a switch that are all
processed is defined as:
Offered traffic = carried traffic + overflow

The carried traffic Aca: The actual traffic carried by a switch.

Overflow (blocked) traffic APB: Portion of the traffic not processed.
APB

A Channel Aca= A (1 - PB)

= A . GOS
GOS = grade of service
Traffic Intensity Models
• Erlang B Formula: All blocked calls are cleared; The most common
• Engset formula (probability of blocking in low density areas); used where Erlang
B model fails.

• Extended Erlang B: Similar to Erlang B, but takes into account that a

percentage of calls are immediately represented to the system if they
encounter blocking (a busy signal). The retry percentage can be specified.

• Erlang C Formula: Blocked calls delayed or held in queue indefinitely

• Poisson Formula: Blocked calls held in queue for a limited time only.
Also know as the delay formula. Therefore time spent for waiting is
more important the probability of blocking
• Binomial Formula: Lost calls held
Traffic Intensity Models - Poisson
• Developed by the French mathematician Siméon-Denis Poisson, (1781-1840)
states that for non-overlapping events, arriving at an average rate, the
probability of x arrivals in time t equals

Where P(k) = Probability of arrivals The formula allows calculation of the

E(n) = Average arrival rate probability of having n arrivals, during
t = Average holding time some time interval, e.g., 1 sec., 1 min.,
e = 2.71828 etc.

The graph below shows the probability of

arrivals from 0 - 13, with an average arrival
rate of 4, i.e. the probability of having more
than 4 arrivals is
1-(0.018+0.073+0.147+0.195+0.195) = 1-
(0.628), or 37.2%

INFOTEL SYSTEMS CORP.

Erlang B Model - Characteristics
Provides the probability of blockage at the switch
due to congestion. Assumptions:

• No waiting is allowed (lost calls are cleared) (I.e. they disappear from the system. This
assumption is valid for systems that can overflow blocked calls onto another trunk (e.g. a high usage trunk)
• A number of identical servers process customers in parallel
• Limited No. of trunk (or serving channels)
• Memory-less, channel requests at any time
• The probability of a user occupying a channel is based on exponential
distribution
• Calls arrival rate at the network = Poisson process (the holding time or
duration of the call has exponentially distribution)
• Analyze using Markov Process of n(t) – number of customers in the system at
time t
Probability of Blocking PB
• Equations for PB, depend on assumption that we make about what
happens to calls that are blocked.

• Lost Calls Cleared

– Assume that blocked calls are cleared (lost from the system. This
assumption is valid for systems that can overflow blocked calls onto
another trunk (e.g., a high usage trunk)

A = Aca /(1 - PB)

• Lost Calls Returning

– Assume that blocked calls are re-tried until they are successfully
carried. This assumption is valid for PBXs and corporate tie lines.
A > or = ACa
Probability of Blocking PB
In MATLAB, use
 Lost calls cleared Erlangb (C,A)
 Poisson arrival
 Call holding times are of fixed length or are exponentially distributed
 Also known as the Erlang-B formula given by:
C
A
where
PB (C , A)  C! A is the traffic intensity
k
C A

C is the number of channels
k! (lines or servers)
k 0
Expressed recursively in a form that is used to calculate tables of the
Erlang B formula as
PB (0, A)  1

APB (C  1, A)
PB (C , A) 
C  APB (C  1, A)
Probability of Blocking PB - contd.

The carried traffic is Aca  A [1  PB ]

GOS

* The start-up systems usually begins with a GOS of 0.02

(2% of the blocking probability) rising up to 0.5 as the
system grows.
* If more subscribers are allowed in the system the
blocking probability may reach unacceptable values.
Traffic Efficiency

The efficiency of
the channel usage
is

Aca

C

Saleh Faruque. Cellular Mobile Systems Engineering. Mobile Communication Series. Artech House Publishers. ISBN 0-89006-518-7.1996.
Erlang B Table
Number of Traffic Intensity (Erlangs)
channels C
QoS=0.01 QoS= 0.005 QoS= 0.002 Qos= 0.001
2 0.153 0.105 0.065 0.046
4 0.869 0.701 0.535 0.439
5 1.36 1.13 0.9 0.762
10 4.46 3.96 3.43 3.09
20 12 11.1 10.1 9.41
24 15.3 14.2 13 12.2
40 29 27.3 25.7 24.5
70 56.1 53.7 51 49.2
100 84.1 80.9 77.4 75.2
Erlang B Chart
Example III
A single GSM service provider support 10 digital speech
channels. Assume the probability of blocking is 1.0%. From the
Erlang B chart find the traffic intensity. How many 3 minutes of
calls does this represent?

Solution:

From the Erlang B Chart the traffic intensity = ~5 Erlangs

AI = H
 = AI /H = 5/(3 mins/60) = 100 calls
Example IV
A telephone switching board at the UNN can handle 120 phones.
Assuming the followings, determine the outgoing traffic intensity and
The number of channels.
- On average 5 calls/hour per phone,
- Average call duration time = 4 minutes,
- 60% of all calls made are external.
- QoS = 0.9%

Solution:

AT = U..H
*U = (120 call*5 calls/hour)*60% =360 call/hour
H = 4 mins/call
Therefore AI =360 * 4 * (1 hour/60 mins) = 24 Erlangs.
Thus 24 hours of circuit talk time is required for every hour of elapsed
time
-No. of channels C from Erlang B chart = ~ 34
Example V
 Consider a telephone switched board with 120 phones. Assuming the
number of call is 3/hour/line, the average call duration is 4 minutes,
and 55 % of all call are made external via a T-1 trunk (24
channels) to the PSTN. Determine carried traffic and channel usage.

Solution:
 Offered traffic A =  x H = (150 phones x 3 calls/hr x 58% ) x
(4 mins./call) x (1 hour/60 mins.) = 17.4 Erlangs
 Blocking Probability PB, C = 24 and A = 17.4, therefore from the
Erlang B Chart or formula PB = 0.03
 Carried Traffic, Aca = A (1- PB )= 17.4 (1-.03)=16.9 Erlangs
 Channel usage  = Aca / C = 16.9/24 = 0.7 or 70%
Note: 16.9 Erlangs of traffic attempts to go across the T1 trunk and 0.5
Erlang is blocked.
Example VI
Traffic Engineering
• The probability that all servers are idle

 The probability that all servers are busy

 The average number of callers in the queue

Traffic Engineering
 The average number of callers in the system

 The average wait time in the queue

 The average flow time through the system

Example VII
• As a manger of a growing call center, you are looking at obtaining
additional phones for the PBX since customers have complained about
long hold times. On average, there are 4 incoming calls per hour on
each phone. The traffic study you requested from the Ameritech CO
shows that on average, your company receives 480 calls/hour. How
many phones do you need to order? Currently there are 100 phones
connected to the PBX for the customer service agents

Solution

•  is the average call arrival rate= 480calls/hour (from traffic study)

•  = phones x calls/hr
• 480 = N x 4 calls/hour
• N = 480/4 = 120 phones
• So the manager needs to order 120-100 = 20 more phones and hire new
customer service reps as well
Efficiency Measures
1- Spectrum efficiency
It is a measure of how efficiently frequency, time and
space are used:
Traffic (Erlang)
se 
Bandwidth  Area
No.of channels/c ell  Offered traffic/ch annel Erlang
 ( )
Bandwidth  CellArea kHz  km2

It depends on:

• Number of required channels per cell

• Cluster size of the interference group
Efficiency Measures
2- Trunking efficiency

Measures the number of subscribers that each channel in

every cell can accommodate

3- Economic efficiency

It measures how affordable is the mobile service to users

and the cellular operators.
No. of Trunk Vs. Utilization Efficiency
Other Performance Metrics Related to
Eralng B-Formula
Cellular Radio Transceiver
Received Receiver
RF signal

IF Demodulator Voice out

Frequency Keyboard
Diplexer
synthesizer Controller
Transmitted & display
RF signal
Power
Modulator Voice in
amplifier

Frequency
synthesizer

Transmitter
Cellular Radio Transceiver - Receiving Path

• Antenna
• Diplexe
– Is a high performance selective filter for the receiving and the
transmitting signals.
– Receiving and transmitting signals are in separate frequency
bands.The pass-bands of the filters are designed to minimise the level
of transmitting signal coupling into the receiver, see the Fig.
• IF and frequency synthesiser
– To down convert the received signal. (Multi-stage IFs are also used).
• Demodulator
– To recovers the original signal (data, voice etc.)
Cellular Radio Transceiver - Transmitting Path

• Modulator
– To up convert the information to a much higher frequency band.
• Power Amplifier
– To boost the signal strength
• Antenna
• Frequency synthesisers
– Are used since transmitting and receiving paths are need
simultaneously. Single synthesiser may be used if the IF is chosen
to be the same as the spacing between the transmitting and
receiving frequency bands (typically 45 MHz).
• Next lecture: Propagation Characteristics