Method and an apparatus for determining the presence of a rate limiting mechanism in a network

A device for determining the presence of a rate limiting mechanism arranged between a sending and a receiving data communication node in a data transfer path of a communication network, the device comprising:

• a communications interface configured to communicate via the network;
• and
• a processor coupled to the communications interface and configured to:
• determine time difference values between probe packets in a train of probe packets sent from the sending node and received in the receiving node after having traversed the data transfer path during real-time operation of the data transfer path;
• and
• determine the presence of a rate limiting mechanism arranged in said data transfer path based on detecting that an increase in the time difference value between received probe packets in the train of probe packets exceeds a threshold criterion.

A device for determining the absence of a rate limiting mechanism at a tight link in a data transfer path between a sending and a receiving data communication node of a communication network, the device comprising:

• a communications interface configured to communicate via the network;
• and
• a processor coupled to the communications interface and configured to:
• based on time difference values determined between probe packets in a train of probe packets sent from the sending node and received in the receiving node after having traversed the data transfer path during real-time operation of the data transfer path, determine the absence of a rate limiting mechanism at the tight link responsive to the time difference values between received probe packets in the train of probe packets being below a threshold criterion.