Signal quality indicator

• US 8,264,977 B2
• Filed: 10/06/2006
• Issued: 09/11/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/06/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson
• Original Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson
• Inventors: Sanguineti, Antonella, Martinotti, Riccardo
• Primary Examiner(s): Thier, Michael
• Assistant Examiner(s): Javaid, Jamal
• Application Number:
  US12/444,504
• Publication Number:
  US 20100027433A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,167 Days
• Field of Search: 370/252, 370/241, 370/217, 370/229, 370/242, 370/465, 370/468, 714/704, 714/751, 714/776, 714/799, 375/227, 375/285, 375/296, 375/346, 702/185
• US Class Current: 370/252
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0061 Error detection codes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/203 Details of error rate determination, e.g. BER, FER or WER

Abstract

A method of deriving an indicator of the signal quality in an in-service packet-based network at least having means to detect errors in packets and means to determine the overall amount of network traffic received. The method comprises the steps of: obtaining a value of the number of packets received having errors therein; obtaining a value of the overall amount of the network traffic received; calculating the indicator of signal quality (eBER) using the ratio of the number of packets received having errors therein to the overall amount of network traffic received.

Claims

1. A method of deriving an indicator of the signal quality in an in-service Ethernet network, said network at least having an error detection function to detect errors in packets, and a counting function to determine an overall amount of network traffic received, the method comprising:

obtaining, from the Ethernet network, a first value representing a number of packets received having errors therein using an etherStatsCRCAlignErrors standard counter;

obtaining, from the Ethernet network, a second value representing an overall amount of network traffic received using an etherStatsOctets standard counter; and

calculating an indicator of signal quality, for the Ethernet network, based on a ratio of the number of packets received having errors therein to the overall amount of network traffic received by;

calculating an estimated Bit Error Rate (eBER) over a measurement interval of a predetermined number of sampled packets using

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the indicator of signal quality is the estimated Bit Error Rate (eBER).

3. The method of claim 1 wherein obtaining a first value representing a number of packets received having errors therein comprises obtaining the first value using standard counters that are part of a standard associated with the in-service Ethernet network.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein obtaining a second value representing an overall amount of network traffic received comprises obtaining the second value using counters that are part of a standard associated with the in-service Ethernet network.

5. The method according to claim 1 wherein:

obtaining a second value representing an overall amount of network traffic received further comprises obtaining the second value using the etherStatsCRCAlignErrors, etherStatsFragments and etherStatsJabbers standard counters associated with the in-service Ethernet network; and

wherein calculating an indicator of signal quality further comprises calculating the estimated Bit Error Rate (eBER) using

6. The method of claim 1 wherein calculating the eBER value comprises calculating the eBER only when the number of packets having errors therein over the measurement interval is between a first threshold and a second threshold.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising selecting threshold values such that:

with the BER≧

10<sup>−

x</sup> the probability to estimate a BER=10<sup>−

x</sup> within the measuring interval is ≧

0.99;

with the BER≦

10<sup>−

x</sup> the probability to estimate a BER=10<sup>−

(x+1)</sup> within the measuring interval is ≦

10<sup>−

6</sup>; and

with the BER≧

10<sup>−

x</sup> the probability to estimate a BER=10<sup>−

(x+1)</sup> within the measuring interval is ≦

10<sup>−

6</sup>.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein calculating an indicator of signal quality further comprises calculating the estimated Bit Error Rate (eBER) over a measurement interval of a predetermined number of bits.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising selecting threshold values such that:

with the BER≧

10<sup>−

x</sup> the probability to estimate a BER=10<sup>−

(x+1)</sup> within the measuring interval is ≧

0.99;

with the BER≦

10<sup>−

x</sup> the probability to estimate a BER=10<sup>−

(x+1)</sup> within the measuring interval is ≦

10<sup>−

6</sup>; and

with the BER≧

10<sup>−

x</sup> the probability to estimate a BER=10<sup>−

(x+1)</sup> within the measuring interval is ≦

10<sup>−

6</sup>.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of optimizing the in-service Ethernet network based on the signal quality indicator.