Patent ID: 7197548
Filing Date: 2007-03-27
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. In a communications network, a method of verifying connectivity between a first node and one or more network nodes, comprising: providing indications of elapsed periodic time intervals at the first node, transmitting a first link integrity indication frame to the one or more network nodes, the first link integrity indication frame including a source identifier that uniquely identifies the first node; counting elapsed periodic time interval indications subsequent to the transmitting of the first link integrity indication frame to produce a count for the first node; receiving frames from the one or more network nodes and maintaining, during each periodic time interval, a node state status and a current received frame source identifier; determining the node state status upon the expiration of a predetermined elapsed time based on the count for the first node; transmitting a second link integrity indication frame based upon determining the node state status as being indicative of not having received frames from a plurality of the network nodes during the predetermined elapsed time; and resetting the count for the first node as a result of transmitting the second link integrity indication frame.