Low-cost Precise QoS Measurement Tool

When implementing networks with QoS guarantees, precise measurement of network QoS characteristics is needed. Primary characteristics of this class are packet loss, throughput, delay, delay variation as well as distribution of delay and delay variation. Commercial network analyzers are often very expensive, do not include provisions for precise time synchronization needed for one-way delay measurement and are closed in a sense that it is not possible to integrate them with other applications for measurement result processing. In this article we describe an architecture and implementation of a simple low-cost measurement tool that can be used for precise measurements of all of the above listed characteristics in small laboratories. Keywords— QoS measurement, GPS time synchronization, throughput, delay, delay variation