Analyzing Telecommunications Traffic Data from Working Common Channel Signaling Subnetworks

Current and emerging telecommunications services are strongly dependent upon the Common Channel Signaling Network (CCSN). Regulatory rulings have accelerated the trend towards increased deployment, utilization, and connectivity of CCSNs in the U.S. In this environment, engineering issues concerning the performance, evolution, and reliability of the CCSN are important. Accurate information about the characteristics of CCSN traffic is needed for engineering models, algorithms, and guidelines. In this paper we report on our work analyzing actual CCSN traffic data. The data consist of approximately 170 million signaling messages collected from a variety of different working CCS subnetworks. We have developed a software library that permits fast and flexible analysis of the data despite its size and complexity. Key findings from our analysis concern: (1) the characteristics of both the telephone call arrival process and the signaling message arrival process, (2) the tail behavior of the call holding time distribution, and (3) the observed performance of the CCSN with respect to a variety of performance and reliability measurements.