In telecommunications, user behaviour activities may be described by a number of systems, ranging from simple to complex.
For example, for plain old telephone service (POTS), a sequence of connection requests to an exchange can be modelled by fitting negative exponential distributions to the average time between requests and the average duration of a connection.
Traffic mix has two goals: Both these functions are extremely important to network operators.
If insufficient capability is deployed at a node (for example, if a backbone router has 1 gigabit/sec of switching capacity and more than this is offered) then the risk of equipment failure increases, and customers experience poor service.
Most providers therefore seek to maximise the effect of their spending by maintaining an unused overhead capacity for growth, and expanding key nodes to relieve problem areas.