JPH0154896B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an economical traffic measurement method that uses a common channel signal network to perform traffic measurement.

Communication network equipment such as telephone networks is designed to satisfy a certain level of quality. Equipment design is done based on the traffic, which is the load on the communication network, so
Traffic measurement is important for efficiently operating the communication network. Conventionally, for example, in a telephone network, traffic was measured at each telephone exchange, which required a large number of traffic measuring devices, which caused economic problems. Additionally, from an economical point of view, traffic measurement equipment is shared by multiple telephone offices and traffic is measured on different measurement days, but since traffic data cannot be obtained at the same time, measurement accuracy is limited. There was a problem with the decline. In addition, in conventional methods, traffic measurement was usually performed at each exchange, so it was necessary to collect traffic data obtained from each exchange for traffic management such as traffic analysis and control. There was a drawback that a separate link was required.

In order to solve these drawbacks, the present invention provides a traffic measurement circuit in a signal repeater of a common signal network, and measures traffic with the traffic measurement circuit, thereby significantly reducing the number of traffic measurement circuits. The drawings will be explained in detail below.

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an embodiment of the present invention,
1, 2, 3 are subscribers, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,
10 is a switchboard, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
16, 17, 18 are voice lines, 21, 22, 23
is a signal repeater that relays common line signals, 24, 25
is the traffic measurement circuit, 30, 31, 32, 3
3, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, and 39 are common signal lines, and 40 is a traffic collection center.

The common line signaling system differs from the conventional individual signaling system in that the call connection signal is transmitted over a signal line separate from the voice line, and the signal line is shared by each call. In addition to not requiring any circuitry, it has the advantage of being able to use a variety of signal types. The present invention measures traffic using a common line signal network (a network consisting of a common line signal line 30, etc., and a signal repeater 21, etc.) that transmits this common line signal. For example, when a call occurs from subscriber 1 to subscriber 3, exchange 5 captures the voice line 11 and records the calling exchange number, the captured voice line number, the selection number (subscriber number of subscriber 3), etc. A connection signal is sent to the signal repeater 21 via the common signal line 31. This connection signal is called an address signal. The signal repeater 21 analyzes the connection signal and relays the connection signal to the next exchange 7 via the common signal line 32, and a link of the voice line 11 is established. The exchange 7 captures the voice line 12, for example, and sends the connection signal to the signal repeater 21 via the common line signal line 32 as described above, and the signal repeater 21 transfers the connection signal to the common line signal line. 34 to the signal repeater 23, and in the same manner, the connection signal is transferred to the exchange 10 via the common line signal line 35, the signal repeater 22, and the common line signal line 36, and the link of the voice line 12 is is set. Thereafter, the call is received by subscriber 3 in the same manner as described above. When the subscriber 3 responds, the response signal is transferred to the exchange 5 via the common line signaling network in the opposite direction. When the call is terminated, in order to release the voice line used by the call, a disconnection signal is transferred to the transit exchange via the common line signal network in the same manner as described above. Therefore, for example, if the connection signal (common line signal) is monitored by the signal repeater 21, various traffic such as the number of calls for each destination, call holding time, number of completed calls, number of incomplete calls, etc. can be measured. Is possible.

Figure 2 shows an example of the signal format of the common line signal (CCITT No. 7 system), where 51 is a header,
52 is the terminating exchange number, 53 is the originating exchange number,
54 is the line number, 55 is the signal type, 56 is the error code, 57 is the selection number attached to the address signal, 5
8 is a label (generic name of 52, 53, and 54).
Signal format 5 corresponding to the originating and terminating exchange number
2,53 is the terminating exchange number for common channel signals, not for calls. For example, the first
When exchange 7 in the figure captures voice line 12, the destination exchange number of the address signal is exchange 10, and the originating exchange number is exchange 7. The line number becomes the captured line number of the voice line 12. originating exchange number,
Label 5 consisting of incoming exchange number and line number
8 allows the call to be uniquely identified at the signal repeater.

FIG. 3 shows an embodiment of the traffic measuring circuit (24, 25 in FIG. 1) according to the present invention, which is an example of measuring traffic for each area. 61 is a common control circuit, 62 is a memory for storing call information, 63 is an arithmetic circuit, 64 is a register, 65 is a ground conversion circuit that converts a selection number into a ground (number), 66 is a time meter, 71, 72, 73 , 74 are fields for each word in the memory 62, 71 is a label, 72 is a field, and 7 is a field for each word in the memory 62.
3 is the call start time, 74 is a field for storing each empty word, 75 is a specific address in the memory 62, 7
6, 77, 78 are fields of register 64,
76 is a label, 77 is a signal type, 78 is a field in which a selection number is set, and 79 is an arithmetic circuit 6.
3 control line; 81 is a memory for storing traffic for each destination for each exchange; 82 is an arithmetic circuit; 83, 8;
4,85 is the field of each word in the memory 81, 83
84 is the number of calls to be added, 84 is the number of completed calls, 85 is a field 86 which stores the total call time, a specific address in the memory 81, 87 is a control line of the arithmetic circuit 82, and 88 is an external storage device.

As before, a call from subscriber 1 to subscriber 3 will be explained as an example. When the address signal from the exchange 5 reaches the signal repeater 21, the signal repeater 21 sets the label, signal type, and selection number of the address signal in the register 64 via the input 67. The common control circuit 61 reads the signal type from the field 77 (signal type), identifies the address signal, and instructs the arithmetic circuit 63 to find a vacant address from the memory 62 via the control line 79. The arithmetic circuit 63 reads out the memory 62, detects that the field 74 (word occupancy) is empty, eg, "0", finds an empty address, eg, a specific address 75, and notifies the common control circuit 61 of the found address. The common control circuit 61 then sends the field 7 to the arithmetic circuit 63.
6 (label), writes the destination of the selected number converted by the destination conversion circuit 65 to a specific address 75, and instructs to set the field 74 (blank word) of the specific address to "1", and the arithmetic circuit 63 executes the instruction. At the same time, the common control circuit 61 is connected to the arithmetic circuit 82.
In contrast, the address determined by the originating exchange number in the field 76 (label) and the destination converted by the destination conversion circuit 65, for example, the field 8 of the specific address 86.
Instructs to add 1 to the number of calls to be added stored in 3 (Number of calls to be added). Arithmetic circuit 82 reads field 83 (number of calls to be added) from specific address 86, adds 1 to field 83 (number of calls to be added), and writes this value back to field 83 (number of calls to be added) at specific address 86. That is, the field 83 (number of calls to be added) at the specific address 86 is incremented by 1. When the call arrives at the subscriber 3 and the subscriber answers, the response signal is relayed from the exchange 6 in the opposite direction to the address signal and passes through the signal repeater 21. A response signal is sent back from the exchange 7 to the exchange 5, and when the response signal reaches the signal repeater 21, it is sent to the register 64 via the input 67 as described above.
The label and signal type are set. The common control circuit 61 identifies that the signal is a response signal from the field 77 (signal type), and instructs the arithmetic circuit 63 to check the label of the field 71 (label) and the label of the field 76 (label) of the memory 62. A command is given via the control line 79 to read out words with the same labels, with the originating exchange number and the terminating exchange number interchanged. The arithmetic circuit 63 reads each word from the memory 62, and reads out the word that meets the above conditions, in this example, the specific address 75. This process is a process of comparing the response signal with the corresponding address signal, determining the destination of the response signal, and recording the call start time. The common control circuit 61 reads the time from the hour meter 66 and inputs the time to the field 7 at a specific address 75.
3 (call start time) is written in the arithmetic circuit 63.
The arithmetic circuit 63 executes the instruction. At the same time, the common control circuit 61 reads the field 72 (ground) of the specific address 75 from the arithmetic circuit 63, that is, the ground field and the terminating exchange number in the response signal, and sends the terminating exchange number and the terminating exchange number to the arithmetic circuit 82. An instruction is given via the control line 87 to add 1 to the field 84 (number of completed calls) at the address in the memory 81 corresponding to the specific address 86 in this example, and the arithmetic circuit 82 executes the instruction. In the above explanation, when handling the response signal label, the originating exchange number and originating exchange number were swapped and processed because the response signal and address signal have opposite signal directions. This is because the number is inverted with respect to the address signal, and calls are managed by the label of the address signal, so the above processing is necessary. When the call ends,
A disconnection signal is sent from the exchange 5, and the signal repeater 2
1 receives the disconnection signal, the label and signal type of the disconnection signal are set in the register 64 via the input 67. The common control circuit 61 is connected to the field 77
(Signal Type) and learns that the signal is a disconnection signal, inputs field 76 to calculation circuit 63
(label) label and field 7 of memory 62
1 (label), read the time from the time meter 66, calculate the call time (line hold time) from the field 73 (call start time) of the word, and clear the word (all "0"). ”). The arithmetic circuit 63 reads the specific address 75 according to the instruction, calculates the call time from the field 73 (call start time), and reads the specific address 75.
Clear. Next, the common control circuit 61 reads the originating exchange number in the field 71 (label) of the specific address 75 and the destination in the field 72 (destination) from the arithmetic circuit 63, and instructs the arithmetic circuit 82 to read the destination of the originating exchange number. Read the corresponding word in memory 81 and enter the call time in field 85.
(total call time). In accordance with the instruction, the arithmetic circuit 82 reads out the specific address 86, adds the call time to the field 85 (total call time), and writes it into the specific address 86 again. If the call is an incomplete call that is lost within the communication network, the originating exchange 5
A disconnection signal is sent from. In this case, the same process as above is performed, but since no response signal is detected, the field 73 (call start time) is zero, and the call time becomes negative, so the common control circuit 61 detects a negative value, and the memory 81 The call information in the memory 62 is cleared because it is configured to stop updating the
Field 85 (total call time) of memory 81 retains the correct value. Although the number of incomplete calls is not counted, the number of added calls and the number of completed calls are stored in the memory 81, so the number of incomplete calls is indirectly measured.

According to the above explanation, the traffic of each destination of the exchange 5 regarding a call from subscriber 1 to subscriber 3 is measured. Measurements are usually made at regular intervals, e.g.
It is done every hour. When a measurement cycle has elapsed from the start of measurement, the common control circuit 61 instructs the arithmetic circuit 82 to aggregate traffic data via the control line 87. Arithmetic circuit 82 reads traffic data from memory 81, divides the total call time in field 85 (total call time) by the measurement cycle, calculates call volume, and stores the number of added calls, number of completed calls, and call volume in external memory. The traffic data is transferred to device 88 and stored.
Furthermore, the memory 81 is reset and measurement of the next cycle is started.

As explained above, the traffic measurement circuit 24 provided in the signal repeater 21 allows the signal repeater 21 to
Since it is possible to measure the traffic of calls that pass through the switch, it is possible to measure the traffic of not only switch 5 but also of multiple switches such as switches 4 and 7, and since a single signal repeater can process common channel signals from more than ten switch The measuring circuit can be centralized compared to the conventional system in which traffic is measured for each exchange, and the traffic measuring circuit can be made much more economical. The above embodiment has been described for the case where it is possible to measure the traffic for each location of an exchange having a common signal line with the signal repeater 21, but there may be cases where it is desired to measure only the exchanges 4 and 5, for example. In this case, by registering the exchange to be measured in the signal repeater 21 and supplying only the connection signal of the registered exchange to the traffic measurement circuit 24, the traffic measurement circuit 24 does not have to perform unnecessary processing. memory 62,8
There is no need to prepare 1 unnecessarily. In the above explanation, the memory 62 is shared by all calls, but from the viewpoint of processing load, the memory 62 is
By dividing the usage area for each measurement exchange, it is advantageous because the label verification processing load is reduced. Furthermore, by dividing the memory 81 for each measuring exchange, the load on the memory 81 for verification processing can be reduced.

In the above explanation, the traffic to each destination was aggregated using the memory 81 in the traffic measurement circuit shown in FIG. The call information set in 64 may be transferred to external storage device 88 or the like.

In the above description, traffic measurement by area has been described, but other types of traffic measurement by area are also possible. For example, when traffic data is aggregated in the memory 81, it is also possible to measure the traffic volume for each route by aggregating it for a combination of a terminating exchange and an originating exchange.

In addition, in the above explanation, for example, when measuring the traffic for each destination of the exchange 5, the traffic that can be measured is related to calls that were able to capture the voice line 11 to the next station of the exchange 5, and those that were related to calls that could not capture the voice line 11. Lost calls cannot be measured directly. However, the number of lost calls for each destination is marked in the exchange 5, and the number of calls is added to the number of calls added to each destination measured by the traffic measurement circuit 24 in the final tally, or at the end of the measurement period. The number of calls is transferred from the exchange 5 to the signal repeater 21, and the traffic measurement circuit 24 corrects the number of calls added for each destination for each measurement period. Furthermore, in the above explanation, the traffic data is stored in the external storage device 88.
However, it is also possible to directly transfer the data from the signal repeater 21 via the common line signal network to the traffic data collection center 40 which has an interface with the common line signal line.

As explained above, the present invention provides a traffic measurement circuit in a signal repeater of a common channel signal network, and performs traffic measurement based on calls passing through the signal repeater. This method has the advantage that the number of traffic measurement circuits can be significantly reduced compared to the method in which traffic measurement is carried out by installing a plurality of circuits, and economical traffic measurement can be realized. In addition, since traffic measurement is performed centrally using a traffic measurement circuit installed in a signal repeater, there is no need for an information network to collect measurement data, and furthermore, the traffic measurement circuit can be sent to other traffic data collection centers. Even in the case of transfer, there is an advantage that the common line signal network can be used in a straight line.

The present invention is applicable not only to telephone networks but also to line switching networks such as facsimile networks and data switching networks.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is an example of a format of a common line signal, and FIG. 3 is an embodiment of a traffic measurement circuit according to the present invention. 1, 2, 3...Subscriber, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,
9, 10... Switchboard, 11, 12, 13, 14,
15, 16, 17, 18...Audio line, 21, 2
2, 23... Signal repeater, 24, 25... Traffic measurement circuit, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34,
35, 36, 37, 38, 39...Common signal line, 40...Traffic data collection center, 51
... Header, 52 ... Incoming exchange signal, 53 ...
Originating exchange number, 54... Line number, 55... Signal type, 56... Error code, 57... Selection number,
58... Label, 61... Common control circuit, 62...
...Memory, 63...Arithmetic circuit, 64...Register, 65...Ground conversion circuit, 66...Hour meter, 6
7...Input, 71,72,73,74...Field, 75...Specific address, 76,77,78...
Field, 79...Control line, 81...Memory,
82... Arithmetic circuit, 83, 84, 85... Field, 86... Specific address, 87... Control line, 88
...External storage device.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. At least one signal repeater constituting a common channel signal network is provided with a traffic measurement circuit that monitors the connection signal of a call passing through the signal repeater and measures the traffic, and the signal A traffic measurement method characterized in that a connection signal of a call passing through the signal repeater is supplied to the traffic measurement circuit in a repeater, and the traffic is measured by the traffic measurement circuit.