Busy-Hour Call Attempts (BHCA) measures the total number of calls a telecommunications switch or network attempts to process during its busiest hour of the day. It gauges the signaling and processing load on the system, regardless of whether the calls are completed, answered, or blocked. Engineers use this figure to dimension network hardware and ensure switches do not crash under peak traffic.
The new softswitch is rated for two million BHCA, which gives us plenty of headroom for the holiday traffic spikes.
Also heard as
- Busy-Hour Call Attempts
Related terms
erlang
An erlang is a unit of telecommunications traffic measurement representing one hour of continuous voice or data use.
Call delay
The time a telephone connection waits in a queue at an automatic switch because no outgoing circuits are free.
Telephone exchange
A central system of switches that routes calls between subscribers.