Second-order conditions on the overflow traffic function from the Erlang-B system: a unified analysis (Q844513)

In the classical \(M/M/n\) loss system a quantity of central interest is the probability of losses and the derived overflow traffic (expected number of lost calls during mean holding time). Considering the formula as two-dimensional function of the offered traffic and the (interpolated) number of servers the authors computer the second order derivatives. Several properties of the queue follow, e.g., strict submodularity of the overflow traffic.