Patent ID: 7796532

Claim:
A method, comprising: transmitting a Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) media stream from a source endpoint to a destination endpoint in a packet network; monitoring a selected segment of the RTP media stream between and excluding the source endpoint and the destination endpoint, wherein monitoring the selected segment does not interfere with monitoring the RTP media stream from the source endpoint to the destination endpoint; transmitting and receiving control messages associated with the selected RTP media stream segment, the control messages including a set of call quality metrics; transmitting and receiving an end-to-end Real-time Transport Control Protocol (RTCP) control message, the end-to-end RTCP control message including a set of call quality metrics related to the RTP media stream from the source endpoint to the destination endpoint; receiving a control message associated with the transmitted RTP media stream at a network node located between the source endpoint and the destination endpoint; identifying the received control message according to a packet type identifier; processing the received control message at the network node if the control message is associated with the selected RTP stream segment; and forwarding the received control message out of the network node if the control message is associated with the end-to-end RTCP control message.