Measurement and forecasting of traffic flow at telephone switching system / Othman Mahmud

For an organisation, forecasting plays an important role in planning. At Telecom Malaysia Berhad (TMB), the forecasting method is used to forecast some requirement such as telephone demand, subscriber demand, cable requirements,traffic flow and so on. The present technique of forecasting traffic flow within exchanges is the Iterative ( also known as Kruithof ) method which are characterised by the traffic matrix balancing algorithms. This is done by Perancangan Asas Rangkaian (PAR) division using CAPTAIN and FOREMAN'S software. This is for the long-term budgeting purpose. For maintenance purpose, the Teletraffic and Congestion Management division under Operasi Rangkaian National (ORN) takes the responsibility to make decision to forecast the future requirement of trunk and junction circuit to cater the traffic flow throughout the exchanges. The curent practice uses only the conversion table based on the traffic reading taken from the monthly reports .The three months reading will determine the required number of circuits for the exchange whether the circuit has to be increased or decreased. This will involve the congestions for at least three months. The data for the whole Malaysia are converted by using database software known as NREC . This project is to forecast the traffic flow with the objective to avoid the congestions and rise up the Telecom revenue to save the budget and to help the planning division for their future plan. The scope is only for the Digital Remote Switch (DRS) or point to point exchanges. The method used is Intervention method by Box and Jenkin (1970), one of the quantitative technique to forecast the traffic flow for the next three years. Then by using the conversion table, the correct number of junction circuits can be determined.