Patent ID: 7719990

Claim:
A traffic monitor system for monitoring traffic in a communications network, comprising: a plurality of circuit interface units, each being associated with a respective one of plural circuits and having a respective pair of input and outputs for a packet signal; a switch unit for connecting a packet signal input into a first of said circuit interface units to a second of said circuit interface units; each of said circuit interface units having an input traffic count unit for counting input packet signals without capturing each of the input packet signals and an output traffic count unit for counting output packet signals without capturing each of the output packet signals; an input traffic counter collection unit for periodically obtaining a count value from said input traffic count unit; an output traffic counter collection unit for periodically obtaining a count value from said output traffic count unit; a packet flow monitoring unit for designating one of said plural circuits; and a monitor data storage unit for storing count values obtained by said input traffic counter collection unit and output traffic counter collection unit to obtain a traffic count corresponding to the one of said plural circuits designated by said packet flow monitoring unit.