System and method for managing performance of communication lines of a communicationnetwork

• US 20070223568A1
• Filed: 03/24/2006
• Published: 09/27/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/24/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Knowledge Ventures, L.P. (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Sbc Knowledge Ventures, L.P.
• Inventors: Jiang, Baofeng, Lim, Michael, Katibeh, Mo, Michetich, Robert, Flores, Juan
• Granted Patent: US 7,460,483 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 375/222
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/24 Testing correct operation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2856 Access arrangements, e.g. Internet access asynchronous transfer mode networks H04L12/5601; broadband local area networks H04L12/2801; optical access or distribution networks H04Q11/0067; access to open networks H04L12/5691; digital subscriber line end-user equipment and bit-level processing of data on a PSTN-based network H04M11/00; home network gateways H04L12/2834; wireless access networks H04W
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0253 using browsers or web-pages for accessing management information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/06 Management of faults, events, alarms or notifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5009 Determining service level performance parameters or violations of service level contracts, e.g. violations of agreed response time or mean time between failures [MTBF]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/507 Filtering out customers affected by service problems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5074 Handling of user complaints or trouble tickets
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/091 Measuring contribution of individual network components to actual service level
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/306 for frequencies above the voice frequency, e.g. xDSL line qualification test methods, test equipment and test arrangements for subscriber lines using xDSL modems H04M3/304; systems modifying transmission characteristics according to link quality H04L1/0001; monitoring and/or testing of line transmission systems H04B3/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/00 Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/18 Information format or content conversion, e.g. adaptation by the network of the transmitted or received information for the purpose of wireless delivery to users or terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/26 Network addressing or numbering for mobility support

Abstract

A method and system for managing performance data of communication lines, such as digital subscriber lines, is disclosed. The method includes receiving from a remote used device an identifier for a particular communications line at a web server; initiating a real-time performance analysis of the line at a network end of the line; receiving real-time performance data and converting the real time performance data to analyzed data; receiving field performance data from the user device; and converting at least one of the field performance data and the real-time performance data from a web-based format to a mainframe format; and sending the converted data to a mainframe for storage corresponding to a file associated with the identifier.

Claims

1. A computer-readable medium accessible to a server, for executing instructions contained in computer program embedded in the computer-readable medium, the computer program comprising:

instructions to receive an identifier corresponding to a digital subscriber line from a user device over a wireless network;

instructions to map the identifier to a port address of a switch in data communication with the digital subscriber line;

instructions to send a request to interrogate the port of the switch to collect real-time performance data for the digital subscriber line;

instructions to collect the real-time performance data for the digital subscriber line at a network end of the digital subscriber line in response to the interrogation request;

instructions to convert collected the real-time performance data to analyzed performance data; and

instructions to transmit the analyzed performance data to the user device over the wireless network.

2. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the computer program further comprises instructions to send a web portal to the user device and instructions to receive the identifier as an input to the web portal.

3. The computer-readable medium of claim 2, wherein the computer program further comprises instructions to receive field performance data of the digital subscriber line performed at a customer end via the web portal over the wireless network.

4. The computer-readable medium of claim 3, wherein the computer program further comprises instructions to send the analyzed performance data and the field performance data of the digital subscriber line to a backend system for storage corresponding to a trouble ticket associated with the identifier.

5. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the real-time performance data analyzed performance data and the field performance data are based on a web-based system.

6. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the computer program further comprises:

instructions to convert at least one of the analyzed data and the field performance data into a mainframe format; and

instructions to send the converted data to a mainframe in a backend system.

7. The computer-readable medium of claim 6, wherein the computer program further comprises:

instructions to determine a node associated with the backend system that corresponds to the identifier; and

instructions to send the at least one of the analyzed data and the field performance data to the determined node.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the computer program further comprises instructions to identify at least one faulty operation with respect to the digital subscriber line that is one of a:

bridged tap fault;

single frequency interference fault; and

disturber circuit fault.

9. A method for accessing digital subscriber line performance data, the method comprising:

receiving an identifier corresponding to a digital subscriber line from a user device over wireless network;

mapping the identifier to a port address for a switch in communication with the digital subscriber line;

sending an interrogation request to the port address of the switch to interrogate the digital subscriber line;

collecting real-time performance data of the digital subscriber line at a network end of the digital subscriber line in response to the interrogation request;

converting the real-time performance data to analyzed performance data; and

sending the analyzed data to the user device over the wireless network.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising sending a web portal to the user device, and receiving the identifier as an input to the web portal.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising receiving field performance data of the digital subscriber line via the web portal over the wireless network.

12. The method of claim 11 further comprising sending the analyzed data and the field performance data of the digital subscriber line to a backend system for storage corresponding to a trouble ticket associated with the identifier.

13. The method of claim 9 further comprising:

using a web-based system for collecting the real-time performance data;

converting the web-based data to mainframe format; and

sending the converted data to a backend system using an emulator associated with the backend system.

14. The method of claim 13 further comprising determining a node associated with the backend system that corresponds to the identifier and storing the field performance data in a database associated with the node.

15. The method of claim 9 further comprising processing the real-time performance data to identify at least one faulty operation indicator with respect to the digital subscriber line that is one of a:

bridged tap fault;

single frequency interference fault; and

disturber circuit fault.

16. The method of claim 9, wherein the identifier is received via a web browser interface provided by a gateway server and wherein the identifier is mapped to the port address by a broadband server responsive to the gateway server.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising communicating the port number to a regional server.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising sending a data request from the regional server to a network equipment management system coupled to the switch.

19. The method of claim 16 wherein the broadband server has an extensible markup language interface to an application client server.

20. The method of claim 9, further comprising creating a log file to record historical trouble events and comments, the log file accessible to a plurality of operational personnel working groups.

21. A system, comprising:

a first server that maintains trouble ticket data corresponding a plurality of communication lines corresponding to a separate identifier for each communication line in the plurality of lines, each line in the plurality of lines providing network content to customer premises equipment; and

a second server that receives an identifier for a particular communication line in the plurality of lines from a user device and wherein the second server;

initiates interrogation of the particular communications lines in response to receiving the identifier;

receives performance data relating to the interrogation of the particular line;

receives filed test data from the remote user device relating to the particular communications line; and

converts at least one of the field performance data and the performance data relating to the interrogation from a web based format to a mainframe format and transmits the converted data to the first server corresponding to a trouble ticket associated with the particular communication line.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the user sends the identifier and the field data over a wireless connection.

23. The system of claim 21, wherein the performance data relating to the interrogation relates to a real-time test performed at a network end of the particular communication line.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein the real-time test is performed using a digital subscriber line access multiplexer coupled to the particular communications line.

25. A system, comprising:

a web server;

a computer-readable medium accessible to the web server for executing instructions contained in a computer program embedded in the computer-readable medium, the computer programs comprising;

instructions to receive an identifier corresponding to a digital subscriber line from a user device over a network;

instructions to collect real-time performance data for the digital subscriber line at a network end of the digital subscriber line in response to receiving the identifier;

instructions to convert the real-time performance data to analyzed performance data;

instruction to receive field performance data from the user device;

instructions to convert at least one of the analyzed performance data and the field performance data from a web-based format to a mainframe format; and

instructions to transmit the data in the mainframe format to a backend system.

26. The computer-readable medium of claim 25, wherein the computer program further comprises instructions to send a web portal to the user device and receive the identifier as an input to the web portal.

27. The computer-readable medium of claim 25, wherein the user device communicates with the web server over a wireless connection.

28. The system of claim 25, wherein the conversion to the mainframe format is done using a “

3270”

emulator.