Statistical Estimates of Traffic Intensity in Communications Systems

The estimators of incoming traffic rate, processing rate, and line utilization are defined, and their statistical properties are analyzed. Attention is directed to the problem of estimating peak traffic rates from communications systems data. The central tendency and variance of the estimators are examined, and the improvement gained by extending the period of testing, or increasing the sample size, is examined. Relationships between duration of test and precision of estimate are developed.