Patent ID: 8248957

Claim:
A method of determining the quality of service for communications passing between pairs of a plurality of gateways connected to a network, comprising: (a) causing each of the plurality of gateways to ping the other gateways; (b) recording the results of step (a); (c) calculating quality of service values indicative of a quality of service for communications between each respective pair of the plurality of gateways using the results recorded in step (b); (d) waiting for a delay period to elapse; (e) repeating steps (a)-(d) to periodically update the quality of service values, wherein during each successive repetition of steps (a)-(d), the calculation step comprises: using the results recorded in the current repetition of step (b) in conjunction with the results from previous repetitions of steps (a)-(c) occurring over a first predetermined period of time to calculate a first set of new quality of service values indicative of the historical quality of service for communications passing between each respective pair of the plurality of gateways during the first predetermined period of time; and using the results recorded in the current repetition of step (b) in conjunction with the results from previous repetitions of steps (a)-(c) occurring over a second predetermined period of time to calculate a second set of new quality of service values indicative of the historical quality of service for communications passing between each respective pair of the plurality of gateways during the second predetermined period of time, wherein the second predetermined period of time is longer than the first predetermined period of time.