Effects of Scanning Interval on Peak Load Measurements
R. Conte · Bell System Technical Journal · 1980
During periods of peak traffic in a communication system, it is well known that load measurements obtained by switch counts are biased upwards as a result of both variation in the source load and of the scanning process itself. This paper investigates the bias introduced into the expected value of a peak load measurement as a result of the scanning process. For small values of source load, we show that this effect is most pronounced when the scanning interval greatly exceeds the average holding time of the item being measured.