Patent ID: 9584183
Date: 2017-02-28
CPC Classifications: H04B,H04M

Claim:
1. A method of identifying a fault condition in a digital subscriber line in a telecommunications network, said method comprising: i) determining an upstream line attenuation and a downstream line attenuation associated with the digital subscriber line; ii) calculating a line attenuation ratio for said digital subscriber line based on the downstream and upstream line attenuations; iii) comparing the calculated line attenuation ratio to the line attenuation ratio distribution calculated from a population of digital subscriber lines; iv) determining a condition of the digital subscriber line in dependence on the result of the comparison; wherein: the line attenuation ratio distribution comprises an upper threshold of attenuation ratio and a lower threshold of attenuation ratio, said upper and lower thresholds defining a range of attenuation ratios within which the majority of the population of digital subscriber lines reside; and the determined condition is a fault when the calculated line attenuation ratio is below the lower threshold or above the upper threshold.