Patent ID: 7417991

Claim:
A method of determining performance of a packet network, comprising: receiving packets having packet sequence numbers on a communications connection through the network; determining for the communications connection a number of times that packet loss or packet re-ordering was detected as a number illustratively referred to as a Sequence Jump Instance (SJI) of times that a received packet sequence number was greater than an expected packet sequence number; determining for the connection a largest burst of lost or re-ordered packets as a largest difference illustratively referred to as a Maximum Sequence Jump (MSJ) between the greater received packet sequence number and the expected packet sequence number; determining for the connection a cumulative sum illustratively referred to as a Cumulative Sequence Jump (CSJ) of determined SJIs; determining for the connection a number of times that packets were re-ordered as a number illustratively referred to as a Sequence Fall Instance (SFI) of times that the received packet sequence number was lesser than the expected packet sequence number; determining for the connection a maximum difference in delay of alternative paths for the connection through the network as a largest difference illustratively referred to as a Maximum Sequence Fall (MSF) between the lesser received packet sequence number and the expected packet sequence number; and indicating performance of the network as a function of the determinations.