Patent ID: 7496046

Claim:
A packet communication quality measurement system which has two quality measurement devices connected via a packet communication network, and a management device connected to the quality measurement devices to calculate a packet communication quality between the quality measurement devices, exchanges a probe packet between the quality measurement devices via the packet communication network, and causes the management device to calculate a packet communication quality between the quality measurement devices on the basis of a transmission/reception status of the probe packet, comprising: a packet counting device having a packet counting unit which counts packets flowing in a desired measurement direction along a path which connects the quality measurement devices, and a probe packet transmission instructing unit which intermittently designates transmission of probe packets at a predetermined interval, wherein said probe packet transmission instructing unit notifies the management device by a transmission notification that a transmission instruction has been issued and of the number of packets counted by said packet counting unit, one quality measurement device transmits a probe packet to the other quality measurement device via the packet communication network in response to the transmission instruction from said packet counting device, the other quality measurement device notifies the management device by a reception notification of a transmission/reception status of the probe packet received from the one quality measurement device, and the management device calculates a communication quality of the probe packet on the basis of the transmission notification from said probe packet transmission instructing unit and the reception notification from the other quality measurement device, weights the calculated communication quality in accordance with the number of packets which is counted between transmission of a previous probe packet and transmission of the probe packet and obtained from the number of packets by the transmission notification, and calculates a packet communication quality between the quality measurement devices from communication qualities which are calculated and weighted for a plurality of probe packets, wherein said packet counting unit counts packets flowing in two measurement directions along the path, the one quality measurement device notifies the management device by a reception notification of transmission of probe packets to the other quality measurement device and in addition a transmission/reception status of the probe packets upon reception of probe packets which correspond to the probe packets and are sent back from the other quality measurement device, and the other quality measurement device sends back, instead of the reception notification to the management device, corresponding probe packets to the one quality measurement device upon reception of the probe packets from the one quality measurement device.