Patent ID: 7747734

Claim:
A method for assessing error over a communication link, the method comprising: creating one or more test packets by way of a processor and a memory, each test packet comprising data to facilitate error checking after the test packet is transmitted over a communication link; monitoring performance of one or more of a receiving node and the communication link, the performance based on an amount of traffic; periodically determining an amount of test packets to send over the communication link to the receiving node; sending a plurality of data packets over the communication link to the receiving node; sending one or more test packets over the communication link to the receiving node; and interspersing test packets throughout the data packets at a variable rate, the variable rate based on the performance of one or more of the receiving node and the communication link, wherein the variable rate of interspersed test packets decreases as the performance slows and the variable rate of interspersed test packets increases as the performance increases such that the communication link is continuously enabled to non-test packet data traffic and the receiving node is able to continually process the data packets.