Methods and apparatuses for obtaining delay, jitter, and loss statistics
of a path between server and an end user coupled via an internetwork are
described. The server may comprise a web server in communication with the
end user via the Internet. Statistics are obtained by analyzing the
details of a TCP connection underlying an HTML transaction. Robust
measurements of jitter, delay, and loss are ensured by maximizing traffic
between the web server and the surfer in order to generate a robust
sample of TCP connections. Content may be updated with one or more html
link(s). This existing content may reside on a highly trafficked portal,
such as a web portal, and may be encoded in a markup language, such as
Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML). The Uniform Resource Locators (URLs)
corresponding to the one or more links resolve to the server from which
the statistics are to be measured. The actual content supplied by the
server may be minimized, in order to preserve bandwidth.