Patent ID: 7478155

Claim:
A method for intercepting data exchanged by remote terminals via a communications network, said data including control packets formatted according to a first real-time data transfer control protocol and associated with data previously exchanged by said terminals, the method comprising: intercepting at least certain data packets of a transfer between at least two remote terminals, during said transfer, so as to determine which of said data packets are control packets, said control packets being formatted according to said first protocol; duplicating at least part of each of said control packets; communicating data representing said duplicated part of each of said control packets to a control application located in said network, said control application deducing information on said transfer from said communicated data; between said intercepting and said duplicating, performing a comparison between a chosen threshold value and the value of a service information field contained in the intercepted control packet; wherein said duplicating comprises duplicating only the part of the control packet in which the service information field has a value greater than said chosen threshold value; wherein certain chosen fields contained in each intercepted control packet, formatted according to the first protocol and in which the service information field has a value greater than said chosen threshold value, are duplicated, and said duplicated chosen fields are communicated; and wherein said service information field is also duplicated, and information data representing said duplicated service information field are communicated with said duplicated chosen fields.