The switch capacity prediction process of the present invention collects operational measurements from the cellular switch. These operational measurements indicate the frequency of the call events processed by the switch. The other input/output (I/O) time used by the call processor to process messages not related to call processing is separated from the call processing I/O time. A relationship between the other I/O time and the sum of the call processing time and call processing I/O time is determined. A weighted average is determined from the summation of the products of: the frequency of events and the call processing time, the frequency of events and the call processing I/O time, and the other I/O time. The weighted average is then divided into the call processor occupancy time, in hours, to determine the switch capacity.
