Patent ID: 6563795
Filing Date: 2003-05-13
Classification: H04J,H04L,H04Q

Abstract:
In a telecommunications network which is holding a virtual connection between two end nodes by a route consisting of one or more links, a method of enabling the identification of an error in a link of the route comprising the steps of:sending from a monitoring node, a first cell downstream towards an end node, the first cell having a loopback location set to a default value and a loopback indication set to indicate a loopback function, the first cell also including a source ID field; forwarding, at each node downstream on the route, the first cell downstream if the identification of the node does not match the default value, and sending, from each node downstream to the monitoring node, a second cell having the loopback indication unset and carrying its own identification, so that an identification of the nodes on the route is made to the monitoring node.