Patent ID: 8270391

Claim:
A method of determining a status of a real-time transfer protocol (RTP) packet stream at a receiver, said method including the steps of: performing, by the receiver, at regular time intervals, a sequence comprising the steps of: determining a time period elapsed since reception of the last RTP packet at the receiver; determining whether a RTP control protocol (RTCP) packet has been received within a predetermined period of time; determining a payload size of the last received RTP packet, wherein the payload size is determined only if the elapsed time period is greater than the time interval and a RTCP packet has been received within the predetermined period of time; receiving information about an output data type of a jitter buffer of the receiver, the output data type being based on a type of audio data contained in the last received RTP packet; categorizing the RTP packet stream as alive if the elapsed time period is greater than the time interval, the payload size of the last received RTP packet is below a predetermined threshold size, and the information received about the output data type of the jitter buffer indicates that the type of audio data contained in the last received RTP packet is comfort noise data generated at an encoder and received at the jitter buffer in at least one comfort noise packet; categorizing the RTP packet stream as dead if the elapsed time period is greater than the time interval and the payload size of the last received RTP packet is above the predetermined threshold size; and responsive to categorizing the RTP packet stream as dead, sending an alarm to an audio output device in communication with the receiver.