telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

networks, traffic intensity is a measure of the average occupancy of a server or resource during a specified period of

time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

, normally a busy hour. It is measured in

traffic Traffic comprises pedestrians, vehicles, ridden or herded animals, trains, and other conveyances that use public ways (roads) for travel and transportation. Traffic laws govern and regulate traffic, while rules of the road include traffi ...

units ( erlangs) and defined as the ratio of the time during which a facility is cumulatively occupied to the time this facility is available for occupancy. In a digital network, the traffic intensity is: :

\frac

where :''a'' is the average arrival rate of packets (e.g. in packets per second) :''L'' is the average packet length (e.g. in bits), and :''R'' is the transmission rate (e.g. bits per second) A traffic intensity greater than one erlang means that the rate at which bits arrive exceeds the rate bits can be transmitted and queuing delay will grow without bound (if the traffic intensity stays the same). If the traffic intensity is less than one erlang, then the router can handle more average traffic. Telecommunication operators are vitally interested in traffic intensity, as it dictates the amount of equipment they must supply.

References

*{{FS1037C MS188 Teletraffic

See also

References