Dimensioning of Other Network Elements

In the previous descriptions, we have provided the basic dimensioning
information for a number of central nodes in a 3G network. There are, however,
many other network elements that need to be sized correctly. These
are nodes, such as Home Location Registers (HLRs), voice mail systems,
SMSCs, and others. Each such node type has it own dimensioning limitations.
For example, an HLR is typically limited by the number of subscriber
records it can support. A voice mail system is often limited both by the number
of subscriber mailboxes (of a given size) that it can support, plus the
number of message deposits or retrievals in the busy hour. An SMSC is typically
limited by the number of messages per second that can be supported.
In the case of a Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) or UMTS
network, it should be noted that SMS is used as the delivery mechanism for
voice mail notifications, which means that the number of short messages
supported by an SMSC may well be greater than those supported in a
CDMAOne or CDMA2000 network.
For all of the other network elements that need to be deployed—such as,
an Equipment Identity Register (EIR), an Intelligent Network (IN) Service
Control Point (SCP), an e-mail system, an HTTP gateway, a WAP gateway,
a AAA server, and so on, one needs to acquire from the particular vendor the
specific dimensioning rules and capacity limitations.