Patent ID: 7426573

Claim:
A method for determining an effective outage time for a connection in a switched communication network comprising a plurality of nodes interconnected by links, and wherein a source node establishes said connection between said source node and a destination node along a first route via a plurality of intermediate nodes, comprising: said plurality of intermediate nodes monitoring said connection for faults occurring in said links, and wherein when a fault is detected on a link, a first intermediate node of said plurality of intermediate nodes, which said first intermediate node is adjacent and upstream of the link on which the fault was detected, sends a release message back to the source node requesting the source node to release said connection and establish a new connection over an alternate route to said destination node; said first intermediate node recording a first timestamp indicating a time said fault was detected by said first intermediate node; said first intermediate node including said first timestamp in said release message; said source node initiating, in response to receipt of said release message, setup of said new connection rerouting traffic carried by said connection via said alternate route; said destination node in response to establishment of said new connection sending an acknowledgement message upstream from said destination node back to said source node indicating that said new connection has been established; generating a second timestamp upon establishment of said new connection; and determining said effective outage time from said first and second timestamps.