To simplify the calculation of the coupling loss factors it is often assumed that there is significant scattering within each subsystem (when viewed across an ensemble) so that direct field transmission between multiple connections to the same subsystem is negligible and reverberant transmission dominates. In practical terms, this means that SEA is often best suited for problems in which each subsystem is large compared with a wavelength (or from a modal point of view, each subsystem contains several modes in a given frequency band of interest).