The Internet and the local telephone network: conflicts and opportunities

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Abstract
This article proposes network solutions to the congestion on the PSTN caused by residential Internet and online subscribers in North America. The conflicts caused by Internet traffic on the PSTN are network problems and the impacts of this traffic-from origination to termination-must be understood and addressed. To develop an understanding of Internet traffic, the data from traffic studies performed by two LECs was gathered and analyzed, and the observed traffic was characterized. This traffic characterization, combined with a knowledge of the North American LEC network, has allowed the existing and future impacts of the increasing number of residential Internet subscribers to be estimated. The network solutions presented and discussed were developed to address these impacts. The Internet traffic observed from usage studies can be characterized by very long holding times and, in some cases, very high numbers of call overflows (calls routed to busy tone), especially late in the evenings. These unusual patterns cause the overall switch traffic to increase, but at the switch sub-component level their effects can be more serious. Telephone operators faced with high penetrations of Internet subscribers can expect to support the cost of additional trunking equipment, additional line equipment, and continuous equipment regrading and load balancing, as well as the risk of denying or degrading service to end users. Traditional solutions, although well understood, are reactive in nature; but for low penetrations of Internet users, they provide low-risk solutions. This article proposes nontraditional network solutions which introduce new functionality into the network. Not only do these solutions relieve all network congestion, they also allow the LEC to offer new services while evolving the network to meet future demands. The initial effort to establish a new network architecture and a new service can be considerable, but for LECs facing large penetrations of Internet subscribers, such innovative network solutions are the key to network profitability

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