icbnet

Elsevier

The signalling system of future integrated services multimedia telecommunication networks is expected to be modular but also complex. The user ability to define service characteristics dynamically will lead to high interaction rates expressed as considerable signalling loads for the network. Towards the objective to test signalling protocols and to recommend on network design issues of a signalling system for demanding services and users, this paper presents a Workload Model Tool (WMT) developed to accurately represent the signalling activity of a user of any service. The WMT adopts a multilevel approach reflecting a classification of users and services according to the generated signalling load and also to the type of the invoked signalling processes. Paradigms of the WMT further show its applicability in studying several issues related to signalling system design.