Blocking Probabilities in Mobile Communications Networks with Time-Varying Rates and Redialing Subscribers

Nadra Abdalla and Richard Boucherie ()

Annals of Operations Research, 2002, vol. 112, issue 1, 15-34

Abstract: Call-blocking probabilities are among the key performance measures in mobile communications networks. For their analysis, mobile networks can be modelled as networks of Erlang loss queues with common capacity restrictions dictated by the allocation of frequencies to the cells of the network. However, due to the time-varying load offered to the cells of such networks, blocking probabilities usually cannot be obtained in closed form. The relation between networks of Erlang loss queues and networks of infinite server queues, for which the time-dependent occupancy distribution is multidimensional Poisson, suggests to use that distribution as approximate distribution for the network of Erlang loss queues. This paper extends this so-called Modified Offered Load (MOL) approximation to networks of Erlang loss queues, and also allows subscribers that find their call blocked to redial to continue their call. For GSM networks operating under Fixed Channel Allocation, it is shown that blocking probabilities are increasing in the redial rates so that the MOL approximation that is most accurate for maximal redial rates turns out to be fairly accurate for the resulting upper bound for blocking probabilities. The accuracy is explicitly evaluated in an application of the results towards blocking probabilities in a hot spot travelling along a road through a GSM network. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2002

Keywords: network of Erlang loss queues; blocking probabilities; time-varying rates; Modified Offered Load approximation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1023/A:1020968702818 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:annopr:v:112:y:2002:i:1:p:15-34:10.1023/a:1020968702818

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/10479

DOI: 10.1023/A:1020968702818

Access Statistics for this article

Annals of Operations Research is currently edited by Endre Boros

More articles in Annals of Operations Research from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().