Abstract: A method and apparatus for processing packets carrying a voice payload are presented. The apparatus provides for the reduction of packet transport overheads by embedding a context switching header within pre-existing data transport protocol headers using spare bits as much as possible. The solution provides configurable support for multi-vendor equipment. Provisions are made for the hardware extraction of the context switching header from the packets as well as for the extraction of packets carrying a voice payload from a stream of packets carrying a mixed data traffic. The hardware extraction is supported using bit masks.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus for evaluating the performance of data switching equipment in processing and conveying, delay, jitter and loss sensitive streams of data are provided. The apparatus includes receive trace records and transmit trace records and the methods include the inspection of the receive and transmit trace records to evaluate the performance of the data switching equipment. The advantages include the availability of an assessment of data transport latencies, data conveyance jitter and data segment loss to enable the provisioning of streaming data services.