Ivan Marsic Rutgers University 238

Arrival times sequence Departure times sequence

C3
C2 C1 C2 C3
C1 Server

:17

:41
:00
:05

10 9

:00

:00

:29

:00
:13
:0

10

10
10
10
10

11

10

10

11
Time Time

Figure 4-18: Illustration of how queues are formed. The server can serve 5 customers per
hour and only 3 customers arrive during an hour period. Although the server capacity is
greater than the arrival rate, some customers may still need to wait before being served,
because their arrivals are too closely spaced.

sequence arrived at a server that can service only four customers per hour, again there would be
queuing delays. Thus, having a server with service rate greater than the arrival rate is no
guarantee that there will be no queuing delays. In summary, queuing results because packet
arrivals cannot be preplanned and provisioned forit is too costly or physically impossible to
support peak arrival rates.
Note also that in the steady state, the average departure rate equals the average arrival rate. Server
utilization = (arrival rate / max. service rate)

Communication Channel
Queuing delay is the time it takes to transmit the packets that arrived earlier at the network
interface. Packets service time is its transmission time, which is equal to L/C, where L is the
packet length and C is the server capacity. In case of packet transmission, server capacity is the
outgoing channel capacity. The average queuing time is typically a few transmission times,
depending on the load of the network.
()_____) delay capacity 1
Another parameter that affects delay is error rateerrors result in retransmissions, which
significantly influence the delay. Reliable vs. unreliable (if error correction is employed +
Gaussian channel)
We study what are the sources of delay and try to estimate its amount. In a communication
system, main delay contributors are (see Section 1.3):
Processing (e.g., conversion of a stream of bytes to packets or packetization,
compression/fidelity reduction, encryption, switching at routers, etc.)
Queuing, due to irregular packet arrivals, sometimes too many, sometimes just few
Transmission, converting the digital information into analog signals that travel the
medium
Propagation, signals can travel at most at the speed of light, which is finite
Errors or loss in transmission or various other causes (e.g., insufficient buffer space in
routers, recall Figure 2-11 for TCP), resulting in retransmission