Patent ID: 8670336

Claim:
A method for estimating a quality of a call in which a first user terminal will comprise an end point, the method comprising: establishing an end-to-end connection between the first user terminal and a node, the end-to-end connection via an access point of a network by which the first user terminal is connected to the network; determining information indicative of a quality of the end-to-end connection by: determining a transmission time for each of a plurality of packets in a queue received at the first user terminal based on information received with the packets; determining a reception time for each of the plurality of packets; receiving, at an estimation function, successive sets of observations, each set of observations including transmission time, reception time, and packet size; and determining the information indicative of the quality of the end-to-end connection using a relationship between the information indicative of the quality of the end-to-end connection, an amount of data in the queue, packet size, and an interval between packet transmissions; displaying a score that indicates an expected quality of a call in which the first user terminal will comprise the end point based on the information indicative of a quality of the end-to-end connection; and providing call initiation means for enabling a user to selectively establish a call between the first user terminal and a callee.