Abstract: A telecommunications system and method is disclosed for providing a cell traffic supervision alarm within a base station (BS) to notify the operator at a Mobile Switching Center (MSC) serving the BS that the BS has had no traffic for a period of time that is unreasonably long. The definition of “unreasonably long” is tied to normal traffic patterns at the BS. An alarm threshold time, which is defined as time between the cessation of all traffic on a BS and the triggering of the alarm, can be calculated based upon a statistical analysis of the traffic history of the BS to determine a time interval such that the probability is acceptably small that under normal conditions the BS would have gone for that entire length of time with no traffic at all. At the expiration of the alarm threshold time, the alarm is activated.