THE M/G/k GROUP-ARRIVAL GROUP-DEPARTURE LOSS SYSTEM

This paper considers the equilibrium behaviour of the M/G/k group-arrival group-departure loss system. Such a system has k servers whose customers arrive in groups, the arrival epochs of groups being points of a Poisson process. The duration of a service can be characteristic of the group size; however, customers who belong to the same group have equal service times. The customers of a group start being served immediately upon their arrival, unless their number is greater than the number of idle servers. In this case the whole group leaves and does not return later (i.e. is lost). Among other things, a generalization of the Erlang B -formula is given and it is shown that the arrival and departure processes are statistically indistinguishable.