Patent ID: 6704289
Filing Date: 2004-03-09
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
A method for determining unavailable customer bandwidth in a connectionless data network receiving data packets from customer routers and for restoring bandwidth when the unavailable customer bandwidth exceeds a prescribed level, comprising the steps of:establishing a quantitative accessibility measurement indicative of the inability of the network to accept data packets from customer routers at an ingress point of the connectionless network; establishing a quantitative continuity measurement indicative of the inability of the network to deliver data packets from the ingress point of the network to a network egress point; determining actual service unavailability of the network as a joint function of the quantitative accessibility measurement and the quantitative continuity measurement; comparing the actual service unavailability to a threshold service unavailability; and restoring the network when the actual service unavailability exceeds the threshold unavailability, wherein the accessibility measurement is made by establishing the total outage time for customers of Bandwidth Bw(i) divided by the number of customers with that said bandwidth multiplied by a prescribed time interval.