Patent ID: 7969905

Claim:
A quality of service network wherein quality of service is used to provide differentiated classes of service by using a plurality of queues that include a first queue having a highest service priority comprising: a transmit probe server configured to generate a probe burst and transmit the probe burst over the quality of service network, the probe burst comprising: a test probe having a sequence number that indicates the test probe's transmitted position in the probe burst and a marking identifier that indicates that the test probe's service priority is assigned to a queue less than the first queue; and a plurality of reference probes, each reference probe having a sequence number that indicates the reference probe's transmitted position in the probe burst and a marking identifier that indicates that each reference probe's service priority is assigned to the first queue; a receive probe server configured to receive the probe burst, record the arrival time and received position of the test and reference probes in their assigned queue service priorities, and from the test and reference probe's queue service priority positions, determine if a microcongestion event occurred based on the test probe queue service priority position relative to the reference probe's positions in the first queue service priority; wherein a microcongestion event results in a reordering of the original probe burst's test and reference probe sequence when received at the receive probe server with no increase in overall burst time duration or inter-packet gap.