Patent ID: 7302482

Claim:
A method of calculating data flow in a communications network, the communications network comprising a plurality of nodes including a plurality of source nodes, a plurality of internal nodes, and a plurality of destination nodes, the nodes being connected to one another by links, the method comprising: (a) obtaining data traffic flow measurements through said nodes and links as input data; (b) correcting said input data if inconsistencies are detected; (c) calculating upper and lower bounds of data traffic flow from a selected one of the plurality of source nodes to a selected one of the plurality of destination nodes using the corrected input data; wherein calculating upper and lower bounds of data traffic flow using the corrected input data comprises calculating for each link between the selected source node and the selected destination node what proportion of data traffic flow originates at the selected source node and terminates at the selected destination node; and wherein the selected source node and the selected destination node are interconnected via at least one of the internal nodes, the internal node connected to at least one other node by a link.