Economic Trunk Group Sizing for Stochastic Traffic Demands

Traditionally, telecommunication networks are designed to carry a specified load and to satisfy a specified blocking objective. The appropriate number of trunks are determined using methods such as the Poisson formula, the Erlang B formula, Wilkinson's Equivalent Random method, or the Neal-Wilkinson tables. 

In general, the overriding objective is to minimize network cost while satisfying certain performance criteria. Trunk group revenue is not a factor. In this paper, we introduce methods which relax the blocking objective and use revenue as well as cost to determine the number of circuits which maximizes the profit contribution from each trunk group.