Patent ID: 7898969

Claim:
A measurement method for use in a data packet transmission network, wherein a stream of packets of data sent by a first terminal passes in transit through at least one network equipment with which there is associated a stream measurement unit, wherein said first terminal and said measurement unit are connected to a collection unit, said method comprising the following steps: the first terminal generating a packet stream according to a predetermined rule, wherein the packet stream, generated according to the predetermined rule, comprises an ordered sequence of n packets Pi of sequence number i in the stream, i being an integer lying between 0 and n−1, each packet Pi having a size of 2 i bytes; the measurement unit analyzing at least one packet of said stream passing through the network equipment; the first terminal dispatching to the collection unit a description of a stream of sent packets, comprising a list including at least sizes of the sent packets; the stream measurement unit dispatching to the collection unit a stream description, comprising at least a sum of the sizes of the analyzed packets; and the collection unit identifying each analyzed packet of the stream as a function of the stream description and of said predetermined rule so as to correlate, packet by packet, said stream description and said description of the stream of sent packets, wherein the collection unit identifies the packets Pi analyzed by reading the sum of the sizes of the analyzed packets, written in binary, each bit corresponding to the respective sequence number of one of the sent packets.