Measurement and interpretation of Internet packet loss

We analyze a month of Internet packet loss statistics for speech transmission using three different sets of client/server host pairs. Our results exhibit packet loss that is highly bursty, with the majority of individual losses occurring in a relatively small number of bursts. We find that loss exhibits dependence in most cases, but is not always well-modeled as dependent. We introduce an analytical technique for measuring loss dependency. We also consider the asymmetry of round-trip packet loss, and find that most loss on a round-trip path occurs in either one direction or the other. Thus, we provide a normalized metric for measuring loss asymmetry and apply it to our measurements. Finally, we discuss the implications of our study for the next generation of real-time voice services in the Internet.