PATHOLOGICAL BEHAVIOR IN LOSS NETWORKS

Hunt and Kurtz [9] consider a loss network as the number of circuits a nd the offered traffics become large. They prove a functional law of l arge numbers for such a network and illustrate their results with some simple examples. In this paper we apply their results to slightly mor e complicated examples to illustrate other, and sometimes surprising, behaviour of the loss networks in heavy traffic. The networks we consi der operate under somewhat unusual routing rules but this is to enable us to produce the behaviour in networks with only a few links. In lar ger, real-world networks it is likely that much more 'natural' and int uitively appealing routing rules could produce similar undesirable beh aviour.