Patent ID: 6128753
Filing Date: 2000-10-03
Classification: H04M,H04Q

Abstract:
A fault management system for a telecommunications network including a local switch and a set of terminating circuits extending between said local switch and terminal equipment provided for users of the network, each of said terminating circuits passing through a series of nodes between said local switch and its respective terminal equipment, said fault management system comprising:circuit testing apparatus located at said local switch and arranged to perform circuit tests on said terminating circuits;a store containing data relating to said terminating circuits and said nodes;means for instructing said circuit testing apparatus to perform a set of tests on one of said terminating circuits;means for checking the results of a set of tests performed by said circuit testing apparatus for the presence of a suspected fault, said checking means being arranged to produce a fault report when a fault is suspected;means for identifying the nodes of a terminating circuit on which a suspected fault is present;means for evaluating a score for each node on a terminating circuit line on which a fault is suspected which represents the likelihood of the suspected fault being present at the node, said evaluating means using the fault report relating to the suspected fault and data contained in said data store in evaluating the score; andmeans for ranking nodes of a terminating circuit on which a fault is suspected in accordance with their scores found by said evaluating means;whereby, in use, after testing a circuit on which a fault is suspected, a list is produced of the nodes on said circuit in which the nodes are ranked in accordance with the likelihood of the fault being present at each node.