Patent ID: 7505415

Claim:
A method of performance monitoring in a communications network, comprising; monitoring a signal over time by allocating a current signal quality characterization to the signal, selected from at least three such signal quality characterizations; identifying a plurality of time intervals making up a continuous succession of such time intervals, such that a current time interval is terminated and a next time interval is initiated each time the signal quality characterization allocated to the signal changes; and generating a record of each identified time interval, wherein the at least three signal quality characterizations are selected from the following: Perfect Time Interval (PT), which is allocated to the signal where no errors are detected on the signal; Errored Time Interval, which is allocated to the signal where errors are detected on the signal in a unit time in insufficient numbers to make a service carried by the signal unavailable; Severely Errored Time Interval, which is allocated to the signal where errors are detected on the signal in a unit time in sufficient numbers to make a service carried by the signal unavailable; Unavailable Time Interval (UAT), which is allocated to the signal where a service carried by the signal is unavailable; and Poor Time Interval (PrT), which is allocated to the signal where a sequence of at least two of the above characterizations are detected on the signal.