Reliability Analysis of a Non-Redundant Repairable Multiplexing Unit

This paper analyzes steady-state reliability measures of a modular multiplexing unit. It is based on a Markov model for the failure and repair process. In particular some reliability figures of merit are determined for a subset of the whole communication path set supported by the multiplex. The key point is a procedure for evaluating the probability that a suitable subset of communication paths can be established. The proposed methodology is applied to some examples of common time-division multiplexing units. The results are useful for the dimensioning of communication networks with reliability constraints.