EE555: "Broadband Networks Architecture"

Professor A. Zahid, Summer Semester 2003

HW#3: Due Tuesday, July 8

Reading Assignment #3

"Warland and Varaiya" Text: "William Stalling" Text:

Chapter 6: 6.1 through 6.5 Chapter 5: Entire
Chapter 12: Entire Chapter Chapter 6: Section 6.1, 6.2

Problems Assignment #3

1. Consider the 3-stage space switch with N = 16, n = 4 and k = 2

a) What is the maximum number of connections that can be supported at any given time?
b) For a given set of input-output pairs, Is there more than one way to arrange the
connections over the this switch
c) Now assume that N = 32. Compare the number of crosspoints required by a non-blocking
switch with n = 16, n = 8, n = 4, and n = 2 cases

2. Consider the 3-stage space switch. An input line is busy 10% of the time.

a) Estimate the percent of time "p" that a line between the first and the second stage is busy.
How do "n" and "k" affect "p"? How does this "p" affect the blocking performance of the
intermediate crossbar switch?
b) For a given input and output line, what is the probability that none of the N/n paths
between the input and output lines are available?

3. Assume that we have a 64 x 64 Benes Network without Buffers. In the event of port
contentions, all cells are discarded except one.

a) How many stages are there?

b) Assume the average arrival rate on each input is 0.25 cells per timeslot. Assume arrivals
are independent in time and un-correlated among inputs. Assume that each arrival is
equally likely to be destined for any output. What is the throughput of the switch?
c) What is the cell loss rate of the switch if the average arrival rate is 1 cell per time slot
based on the above assumptions?
d) Again using the same assumptions as before, but now assume an input-buffered switch. If
the average arrival rate is 0.5 cells per timeslot, what are the total throughput and the cell
loss rate for this switch?

1
4. What is "K" in the Knockout switch refers to? Consider a Knockout switch with the number
of inputs N = 8 and the load on the switch is ρ is 0.9

a) What is the minimum value of "K" such that the cell loss rate is less than 10-7?
b) What is the minimum value of "K" such that satisfies probability of loss less than 10-5?

5. A transmission system has a BER (Bit Error Rate) of "p" (i.e. the probability that a bit
is received in error is p). Assume fixed size packets (cells) are transmitted. The length
of the payload is "N-bits" and the length of the header is "n-bits". Define the cell error
rate as the rate at which delivered cells are in error (i.e. it is the probability that a
delivered cell is in error). Assume all bits are independent.

a) Find an expression for the CER.

b) Find the average number of transmissions for one correctly received cell.
c) Find the average number of bits transmitted per one correctly received bit of
information.
d) Assume n=40 bits, what is the optimum value of N in the case p = 10-9 and p=10-3
respectively

6. Packets arrive at an output interface of a packet switch of a network in a Poisson

matter with an average rate of 4 packets/minute. Packet lengths are exponentially
distributed with an average length of 9600 bits/packet. The transmission rate is 12
kbps.
a) Find the average waiting delay at the switch?
b) Find the average # of packets queued at the switch?
c) Repeat parts a and b assuming the packets have fixed length of 9600 bits

Hint: Parts a and b use M/M/1 model. Part C use M/D/1. Review Chapter 8, sec 8.4 in
Stalling's book.

2
7. Consider a cell switch positioned at the interface between a customer’s site and a
public ATM network. The switch has four OC-3 (An OC-3 link is 155.52 Mbps)
SONET/ATM bi-directional links on the customer’s side and one OC-12 (an OC-12
is 622.08 Mbps) SONET/ATM bi-directional link on the public-network side. The
OC-3 links have a raw utilization of 50% flowing from the customer towards the
public network. The OC-12 link has a raw utilization of 70% flowing from the
network towards the customers, and this traffic is distributed evenly among the four
customer-side interfaces. Assume that the time to switch a cell is insignificant. All
cell streams arrive according to a Poisson process.

a) What is the slot time and mean cell delay at the customer-side interfaces? Express
your answer in seconds.
b) What is the slot time and mean cell delay at the network-side interface? Express
your answer in seconds.
c) What is the overall mean cell delay of the switch in seconds? Express your answer
in seconds.
OC-3
OC-12
Customer ATM
Public
Network Switch
Network

Hint: For the mean cell delay, you need first to decide whether the model is
M/M/1 or M/D/1 and then use the appropriate equation from Table 8.6,
Stalling's book (this is the material from EE465)