The Distribution for Traffic in a Nonblocking Random Access Discrete Address Communication System

In a random access communication system, the number of calls in progress at any instant of time is a random variable. For centralized systems with blocking, such as the switched telephone system, the assumption of a binomial distribution for this variate is often valid. For a decentralized, nonblocking discrete address system, in which a channel between any two idle parties always exists, it is not valid. In this paper the appropriate distribution is derived.