Network Reliability Calculations

Experience has shown that hardware-, software-, and operator-induced failures are all approximately equally likely. The current industry approach focuses on catastrophic failure of a hardware component subsystem, or system as the most significant measure of the equipment's or system's reliability. Equipment availability is the percentage of total time the equipment performs its intended function. For most electronic system reliability calculations, analysis is based on component failures without regard to the underlying physical failure mechanisms. Statistical measures of system reliability, based on probabilistic analysis, form the basis for making equipment system reliability comparisons. The evaluation of reliability of communication systems is similar to the evaluation of network elements. This chapter also discusses radio configurations, repairable spare units, and BER estimation.