Patent ID: 8717910

Claim:
A method comprising: determining flow statistics information at a first network device; modulating by the first network device a time-to-live (TTL) header field in a plurality of packets associated with a flow, each of the plurality of packets including a header and a payload, wherein modulating the TTL header field in the plurality of packets comprises modifying the TTL header field in each of the plurality of packets such that the modified TTL header fields in the plurality of packets together carry a bit stream of the flow statistics information including intra-network metrics or inter-network metrics; modulating by the first network device a time-to-live (TTL) header field in a second plurality of packets associated with the flow, each of the second plurality of packets including a header and a payload, wherein modulating the TTL header field in the second plurality of packets comprises modifying the TTL header field in each of the second plurality of packets such that the TTL header fields of the second plurality of packets together include an autocorrelation code; transmitting by the first network device the second plurality of packets to a destination network device from the first network device; and transmitting by the first network device the plurality of packets to the destination network device, enabling the destination network device to demodulate the TTL header field in the plurality of packets to determine the flow statistics information, wherein the second plurality of packets is transmitted to the destination network device prior to transmitting the plurality of packets to the destination network device.