Traffic: forecasting of signaling networks

With common channel signaling (CCS), there are actually two separate networks working in conjunction with each other, the message network and the CCS network. Two distinctive characteristics of the CCS network are: (1) traffic offered to the CCS network is in proportion to that offered to the message network, and (2) the CCS network has substantial redundant network elements built in for reliability purposes. In this paper, methods for traffic forecasting of the CCS network are considered with these two characteristics in mind. Specifically, traffic growth factors of the message network are used in forecasting the CCS traffic, and a conceptual CCS network model is used, in which the network redundancy is made transparent