Patent ID: 7929512

Claim:
A method for performance management in a cellular mobile packet data network having a plurality of mobile stations linked to a plurality of base stations through a plurality of radio channels, the base stations being linked to a radio access network, and the radio access network being linked to a support node in a packet core network comprising the steps of: capturing raw traffic traces over standardized interfaces of the operational cellular mobile data network; building a traffic and session database by parsing through the traces in order to extract and correlate information about a plurality of user transactions which happened during a measurement period, wherein each user transaction is associated with a specific subscriber using captured session management signaling, and each user transaction is associated with a cell location using captured mobility management signaling, said building the traffic and session database comprises the steps of: parsing through the raw traffic traces for internet protocol (IP) packets; processing the IP packets one by one to group together the IP packets belonging to a same user transaction of a same user; storing condensed application transactions information associated with the IP packet groups; associating subscribers with the stored condensed application transactions information by: parsing through signaling message used to initiate subscriber data sessions where the subscribers identify themselves by using unique identifiers and the cellular mobile data network answers with IP addresses which the mobile stations use for the user transactions; associating the user transactions with cell level locations by: monitoring mobility management signaling when the mobile stations change cells to obtain identifiers of the subscribers and the cell level locations; storing the identifiers of the subscribers together with the cell level locations and timestamps when the subscribers visited the cells; extending the stored condensed application transactions information to include the cell level locations of the user transactions and indicators of cell changes during a course of the user transactions; and storing summary data about the users transactions belonging to same user sessions together with a list of cells visited during the user sessions and the timestamps when the subscribers visited the cells; defining a set of key performance indicators; and calculating the set of key performance indicators using a subset of the information in the traffic and session database to monitor user perceived end-to-end performance on a cell level.