Patent ID: 8457000

Claim:
A method of monitoring quality of a telephone call transmitted over a network, the method comprising: performing a traceroute through the network; obtaining a plurality of metrics associated with the telephone call, the plurality of metrics being obtained via the traceroute, and the plurality of metrics being based on data packets that are transmitted during the telephone call; determining whether the plurality of metrics exceeds a corresponding plurality of thresholds; increasing a frequency of the traceroute when at least one of the plurality of metrics exceeds its corresponding threshold; after increasing the frequency of the traceroute, re-obtaining the plurality of metrics; determining whether the re-obtained plurality of metrics exceeds the corresponding plurality of thresholds; decreasing the frequency of the traceroute when the re-obtained plurality of metrics is determined to be below the corresponding plurality of thresholds; receiving information from nodes of the network using the trace route, the information based on the metric exceeding the threshold; using the information and other information relating to routing of other telephone calls through the network to locate a problem on the network, the problem comprising at least one of a bottleneck, a failed node, or a node not functioning properly; and routing subsequent telephone calls based on the information to avoid the problem.