A Theoretical Traffic Performance Analysis of an Integrated Voice-Data Virtual Circuit Packet Switch

A time division packet switch capable of concurrently handling both voice and data traffic is proposed, and some of its performance limitations are analyzed. The voice packet traffic is handled at a higher priority level than data traffic, in order to meet stringent timing criteria, and can be shown to be handled just as if it were circuit switched. The data traffic utilizes whatever time slots are not occupied with voice traffic. The principal performance limitations described in this exploratory study are the fraction of time the voice traffic is blocked due to all the available time slots already being used for voice traffic, and an upper bound on the mean delay encountered by the data traffic as it waits to find an available time slot. An illustrative numerical result is the following. If we assume that each voice telephone conversation lasts for a mean of five minutes, and that twenty voice calls are generated over a six hour time span, and each data session lasts for a mean of forty minutes, and that five data calls are generated over a six hour time span, then if separate line switched networks are used for voice and for data with long term blocking probability of one percent, a total of 703 64 kbits links would be required to support 461 voice stations and 882 data terminals. On the other hand, using the integrated voice/data switch described here, and if we assume that the total delay due to the switch alone for data packets cannot exceed a long term mean value of one second, then only 298 64 kbit/s links are required to support 461 voice stations and 882 data terminals, reducing the number of required links by a factor of about two. Moreover, the assumptions leading to this comparison suggest that the packet switch could in fact support significantly more than this number of voice stations and data terminals. This is achieved at the expense of additional buffering for the data in the packet switch approach.