Patent ID: 7756032

Claim:
A method for communicating data within measurement traffic, the method comprising: sending a plurality of one or more measurement packets over a plurality of one or more paths, each of the first plurality of one or more measurement packets having a common source and destination IP address, each of the plurality of one or more paths traversing at least a portion of an internetwork, and each of the plurality of one or more measurement packets including: information for a receiver of the measurement packet to compute measurements of performance characteristics of at least a portion of the path of the measurement packet, and data including control data comprising instructions that direct a receiver of the measurement packet to change one or more configuration parameters of the receiver, the data further including one or more of measurement statistics, a generic communication channel, and network information; and determining a delay average for the plurality of one or more measurement packets by analyzing at least two packets from the plurality of one or more measurement packets; determining a jitter average for the plurality of one or more measurement packets by analyzing at least two packets from the plurality of one or more measurement packets; and combining the jitter average and delay average for the plurality of one or more measurement packets into a single value; and including the single value in the data measurement statistics.