VOIP DIAGNOSIS

• US 20090028061A1
• Filed: 07/25/2007
• Published: 01/29/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 07/25/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: VOIPFUTURE GmbH (Jan Bastian Asset Management GmbH)
• Original Assignee: VOIPFUTURE GmbH (Jan Bastian Asset Management GmbH)
• Inventors: Zaencker, Olaf Carl
• Granted Patent: US 8,665,732 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/252
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/00 Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0829 Packet loss
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0852 Delays
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/087 Jitter
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/106 using time related information in packets, e.g. by adding timestamps
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/2236 Quality of speech transmission monitoring

Abstract

A VoIP-aware device generates data structures that include diagnostics data. The diagnostics data of each data structure identifies at least one of sender and network problems that degrade VoIP voice quality.

Claims

1. A method performed by a VoIP-aware device, the method comprising generating VoIP analysis data from received VoIP traffic, generating VoIP diagnostics data from the analysis data;

and creating a diagnostics data structure including the diagnostics data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein each data structure further includes data identifying the VoIP-aware devices that have sent and received the VoIP traffic.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the analysis data includes computing Interarrival times of the VoIP traffic in real time, each Interarrival time computed as the difference between receipt times of two consecutive VoIP packets of one direction of a VoIP call.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein generating the analysis data further includes generating histograms from the Interarrival times.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein granularity of the Interarrival times is reduced to reduce histogram size.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein generating the VoIP diagnostics data includes performing pattern recognition on the histograms.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein generating the VoIP diagnostics data further includes thresholding certain analysis data.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the diagnostics data identifies sender problems.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the diagnostics data identifies network problems.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the diagnostics data identifies and distinguishes between sender and network problems.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the analysis and diagnostics data are generated continuously, and wherein the method further comprises generating additional data structures periodically, each data structure including analysis data and diagnostics data.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein each data structure contains analysis and diagnostics data over an interval of received traffic.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising transmitting the data structures to at least one of a VoIP-aware device and a management system.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising using the data structures for adaptive behavior.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising using the data structures for VoIP network diagnosis.

16. A VoIP-aware device for generating data structures that include diagnostics data, the diagnostics data of each data structure identifying at least one of sender and network problems that degrade VoIP voice quality.

17. The device of claim 16, wherein the diagnostics data identifies and distinguishes between sender and network problems.

18. The device of claim 16, wherein the diagnostics data is generated in real time from Interarrival times of VoIP traffic, each Interarrival time computed as the difference between receipt times of consecutive VoIP packets.

19. The device of claim 18, wherein each data structure contains diagnostics data over an interval of received packets.

20. The device of claim 18, wherein generating the diagnostics data further includes generating histograms of Interarrival times.

21. The device of claim 20, wherein generating the diagnostics data further includes performing pattern recognition on the histograms.

22. The device of claim 20, wherein the data structures also include the histograms.

23. The device of claim 22, wherein the data structures also include other histograms of time-varying parameters of the VoIP traffic.

24. The device of claim 16, wherein the diagnostics data is generated continuously.

25. The device of claim 16, further comprising transmitting the data structure to at least one of a VoIP-aware device and a management system.

26. The device of claim 25, wherein diagnostics data is transmitted only when bad voice quality is diagnosed.

27. The device of claim 16, further comprising using the data structures for adaptive behavior.

28. The device of claim 16, further comprising using the data structures for VoIP network diagnosis.

29. A VoIP-aware device comprising means for generating VoIP diagnostics data from real VoIP traffic during a VoIP call, the diagnostics data indicating at least one of sender and network problems that degrade VoIP voice quality during the call;

and means for creating data structures during the call, the data structures including the diagnostics data.

30. The device of claim 29, wherein each data structure contains analysis and diagnostics data over an interval of received packets.

31. An article comprising memory encoded with data for causing a VoIP-aware device to have a call, generate data structures that indicate at least one of sender and network problems that degrade VoIP voice quality during a call with another VoIP-aware device, and send the data structures to the other device during the call.

32. A VoIP system comprising a VoIP service provider;

and a plurality of VoIP-aware devices, each device generating data structures from real VoIP traffic, each data structure indicating at least one of sender and network problems that degrade VoIP voice quality;

whereby diagnostics of the VoIP system is distributed among the VoIP-aware devices.