Patent ID: 8477653

Claim:
A method of monitoring a performance of a communications network, the method comprising: receiving by a core network node a request from a management node relating to a data flow property which is associated with one of a plurality of different types of user equipment or from an intermediate network node relating to a data flow identity which is associated with the one type of user equipment; receiving by the core network node a plurality of data flows passing through the core network node; checking by the core network node a user equipment identifier for each of the plurality of data flows passing through the core network node; determining by the core network node whether the user equipment identifier is associated with the data flow property or the data flow identity of the plurality of data flows; adding by the core network node a performance management identifier to each of the plurality of data flows determined to be associated with the data flow property or the data flow identity; and identifying by at least one base station data flows containing the same performance management identifier; aggregating by the at least one base station statistics relating to the identified data flows identified by the at least one base station; and reporting by the at least one base station the aggregated statistics to a management node of the communications network.