Abstract: The invention relates to a method for real time testing of TCP traffic in a network, the method comprising: (a) connecting a tester to the network; (b) requesting connectionless traffic from a remote device connected to the network, to the tester; (c) generating the connectionless traffic comprising a plurality of packet streams, with the remote device, and receiving the connectionless traffic by the tester; (d) generating TCP traffic comprising a plurality of TCP sessions between the tester and the remote device; and, (e) concurrently with steps (c) and (d), in real time collecting statistics of the TCP sessions using the tester. The tester has an-FPGA implemented traffic engine, including a TCP state machine, for generating and receiving traffic at the rates of at least 1 gigabit per second, and for collecting statistics in real time.