Traditionally, port density has been a major focus for developers of carrier-oriented communication boards and systems. Vendor claims are constantly leap-frogging one another.
Port density is important.
However, focusing only on this single dimension can eclipse awareness of other critical attributes necessary for carrier-grade systems to meet the capacity requirements of service providers. These other attributes include high-availability, processor efficiency, manageability, and calls per hour, or Call Density. This paper focuses on Call Density, or the number of calls a system can process in a given period of time. Call density is in part a function of the number of ports in the system and the call duration, but it is also affected by other design factors such as efficiency of call setup and teardown, and efficient host CPU utilization. This paper will discuss why and in what applications Call Density is most important.