METHOD AND SYSTEM TO IDENTIFY A SOURCE OF SIGNAL IMPAIRMENT

• US 20120005331A1
• Filed: 07/02/2010
• Published: 01/05/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 07/02/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Beattie, James Gordon Jr., Marsh, Edward
• Granted Patent: US 9,300,525 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2889 Multiservice, e.g. MSAN
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/065 involving logical or physical relationship, e.g. grouping and hierarchies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0661 by reconfiguring faulty entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0677 Localisation of faults
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 11/062 using different frequency bands for speech and other data
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/304 and using xDSL modems xDSL line qualification H04M3/306

Abstract

A method and system for managing performance of over a multimedia content distribution network (MCDN), such as a digital subscriber line network, involves receiving an indication of an impairment in network performance from an MCDN client. The MCDN node associated with the client may be identified and a community of MCDN clients coupled to the MCDN node may be further identified. Impairment information, representative of MCDN equipment, may be collected for each of the MCDN clients. Detailed network diagnostics and field service may be performed for MCDN clients based on a characterization of the impairment parameters. After remediation of the MCDN node, collection of the impairment information may be terminated.

Claims

1. A method for managing performance of a multimedia content distribution network (MCDN), comprising:

responsive to receiving an indication from a first MCDN client system of an impairment in MCDN performance, identifying a local MCDN node serving the first MCDN client system;

identifying a community of MCDN client systems served by the local MCDN node, including the first MCDN client system;

characterizing the MCDN client systems in the community based on an impairment parameter;

identifying candidate MCDN client systems in the community based on said characterizing; and

performing network diagnostics on the identified candidate MCDN client systems to predict a source of the impairment in MCDN performance.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication of the impairment in MCDN performance is a service request to an MCDN network provider, and wherein the impairment parameter describes customer premises equipment respectively associated with each of the community of MCDN client systems.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the impairment parameter is a number of reinitializations of a gateway respectively associated with each of the community of MCDN client systems.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said identifying the local MDCN node includes identifying an MCDN sub-node included in the local MCDN node, and further comprising:

based on the network diagnostics, determining whether the predicted source of the impairment in MCDN performance is electromagnetically coupled to the first MCDN client system.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the impairment is associated with digital subscriber line service provided to the first MCDN client via a galvanic loop from the MCDN node.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the predicted source of the impairment is a second MCDN client system different from the first MCDN client system.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein said performing network diagnostics includes determining where the first MCDN client system and the second MCDN client system share proximate network connections.

8. A computer system for monitoring a multimedia content distribution network (MCDN), comprising:

a processor having access to memory media, wherein the memory media include instructions executable by the processor to;

receive an indication from a first MCDN client of an MCDN impairment;

identify a plurality of MCDN clients sharing an MCDN node with the first MCDN client;

generate a performance profile for each of the plurality of MCDN clients; and

analyze the performance profile to determine impairment rankings within the plurality of MCDN clients.

9. The computer system of claim 8, wherein the memory media further include processor instructions executable to:

based on the impairment rankings, identify a second MCDN client included in the plurality of MCDN clients as a probable contributor to the MCDN impairment, wherein the second MCDN client is different from the first MCDN client, and wherein the MCDN impairment is associated with digital subscriber line service provided via the MCDN node.

10. The computer system of claim 8, wherein the performance profile includes a customer premises equipment (CPE) parameter obtained by querying CPE of a respective MCDN client.

11. The computer system of claim 10, wherein the CPE parameter is a number of reinitializations of a gateway associated with the respective MCDN client.

12. The computer system of claim 10, wherein the impairment rankings are used to identify MCDN clients that are probable contributors to the MCDN impairment based on at least one of:

a threshold value of the CPE parameter;

a percentage of the plurality of MCDN clients;

a predetermined MCDN quality parameter; and

a number of MCDN clients.

13. The computer system of claim 8, wherein the processor instructions executable to analyze the performance profile are further executable to:

determine, based on the impairment rankings, that the MCDN node is operating normally; and

responsive to determining that the MCDN node is operating normally, stop generating the performance profiles.

14. The computer system of claim 8, wherein said processor instructions executable to identify the plurality of MCDN clients are executed when an MCDN uplink associated with the first MCDN client is operating normally, and wherein the performance profile includes an MCDN node parameter obtained by querying the MCDN node.

15. Computer-readable memory media, including instructions for monitoring a multimedia content distribution network (MCDN), said instructions executable to:

receive an indication from a first MCDN client of an impairment in MCDN performance, wherein the first MCDN client is one of a community of MCDN clients associated with an MCDN node;

generate rankings for the MCDN clients in the community based on an impairment parameter;

predict a source of the impairment in MCDN performance based on the rankings; and

initiate network service to determine the extent to which the predicted source of the impairment in MCDN performance is coupled to the first MCDN client system.

16. The memory media of claim 15, wherein the predicted source of the impairment is associated with a second MCDN client different from the first MCDN client.

17. The memory media of claim 15, wherein the MCDN impairment is associated with digital subscriber line (DSL) service provided via the MCDN node, wherein the MCDN node is a DSL access multiplexer (DSLAM) including line termination cards having ports respectively configured to provide DSL service to an MCDN client.

18. The memory media of claim 15, wherein the impairment parameter is associated with customer premise equipment (CPE) for each of the community of MCDN clients, and further comprising instructions executable to:

query the CPE to obtain the impairment parameter for the community of MCDN clients.

19. The memory media of claim 15, further comprising instructions executable to:

record a performance profile for each of the plurality of MCDN clients, the performance profile including at least one impairment parameter.

20. The memory media of claim 15, wherein the impairment parameter is recorded at the MCDN node, and further comprising instructions executable to:

query the MCDN node to obtain the impairment parameter for each of the plurality of MCDN clients.