erlang

Thân thiện

A telephone engineer measures the erlang of a busy exchange.

Definition

Noun: 1. A unit of traffic intensity in a telephone system: An Erlang is a dimensionless unit that represents the average number of concurrent calls carried by a voice circuit or the total traffic volume in one hour. It is used in telecommunications to quantify voice traffic and calculate the capacity required in a network or system.

Usage Examples

• Noun:
  • The telephone exchange was designed to handle a load of 5 erlangs during the busiest hour.
  • Network planners use erlang calculations to determine how many lines are needed to prevent call blocking.

Advanced Usage

• Erlang B Formula: A mathematical formula used to calculate the probability that a call will be blocked in a system with no queuing, based on the offered traffic in erlangs and the number of available circuits.
  • The engineer applied the Erlang B formula to model the blocking probability for the new switchboard.
• Erlang C Formula: A related formula used to calculate the probability of delay in a queuing system, such as a call center.
  • To estimate customer wait times, the manager used the Erlang C model with the forecasted traffic in erlangs.

Variants and Related Words

• Erlangian (adj): Pertaining to or involving the Erlang unit or the mathematical theories of Agner Krarup Erlang.
  • The traffic analysis followed an Erlangian distribution.
• Centum Call Second (CCS): Another unit of telephone traffic measurement; one erlang equals 36 CCS.
  • The report listed the traffic load in both erlangs and CCS.

Synonyms

• Traffic unit: A general term for a measure of communication system load.
• Call hour: A descriptive term for the volume represented by one erlang.

Notes on Different Meanings

• Proper Noun (Erlang): This word is also the name of a general-purpose, concurrent, functional programming language. This is a distinct, separate meaning from the telecommunications unit.
  • The backend service was written in Erlang for its robustness in handling concurrent connections.
  • Important: When referring to the programming language, it is always capitalized ("Erlang") and typically used in software/computer science contexts, not telecommunications.

Học thuật

Noun

1. a unit of traffic intensity in a telephone system

Từ đồng nghĩa

• erlang