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A Reliability and Survivability Analysis of Local Telecommunication Switches Suffering Frequent Outages

Authors:
Andrew Snow
Julio Arauz
Gary Weckman
Aimee Shyirambere

Keywords: telecommunication; reliability; local switches; mobile switching centers; public switched telephone network; wireless systems.

Abstract:
This paper presents a reliability analysis of local telecommunication switches experiencing frequent outages in the United States, based upon empirical data. Almost 13,000 switch outages are examined and over 2,500 are found to originate with just 156 switches experiencing eight or more outages each over a 14-year period. Telecommunication switch outage statistics are analyzed for this multiyear period, allowing examination into switch failure frequency, causes, trends, and impacts. Failure categories are created by reported outage cause codes, including human error, design error, hardware failure, and external factor causality categories. Principal findings are that there are significant differences in the switch and outage characteristics for switches experiencing more frequent outages/failures. Additionally, time series analysis indicates significant reliability/survivability deterioration in switches experiencing more frequent outages.

Pages: 209 to 216

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2013

Publication date: January 27, 2013

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4413

ISBN: 978-1-61208-245-5

Location: Seville, Spain

Dates: from January 27, 2013 to February 1, 2013