ONE-WAY DELAY MEASUREMENT IN A PACKET-SWITCHED COMMUNICATION NETWORK

A method for providing one-way delay measurements on a bidirectional packet flow exchanged between two nodes of a packet-switched network. Each packet of the bidirectional packet flow comprises a marking field. At predefined times, the two nodes start transmission of respective measurement packet blocks made of packets with marking field set equal to a measurement value. Each node continues transmission of the respective measurement packet block, until it starts receiving the measurement packet block transmitted by the other node. In response thereto, each node ends transmission of the respective measurement packet block. A measurement point placed on the path of the bidirectional packet flow detects the measurement packet blocks and provides one-way delay measurements based on their time properties. For example, the end-to-end one-way delay in a given direction may be measured as the duration of the measurement packet block transmitted in the opposite direction.