Methods and apparatus for non-intrusive measurement of delay variation of data traffic on communication networks

Abstract

A technique for measuring delay variation (jitter) of data traffic (protocol data units (PDUs)) traversing a communication network involves: generating first PDU identifiers of PDUs observed at a first point and corresponding first timestamps indicating observation times of the PDUs at the first point; generating second PDU identifiers of PDUs observed at a second point and corresponding second timestamps indicating observation times of the PDUs at the second point; and computing, from first and second timestamps having matching PDU identifiers, a measure of variation indicating a delay variation of PDUs between the first and second points. The computation can include computing first time differences between observation times of the PDUs at the first point from the first timestamps, computing second time differences between observation times of the PDUs at the second point from the second timestamps, and computing differences between corresponding first and second time differences having matching PDU identifiers.

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