Patent ID: 6115391
Filing Date: 2000-09-05
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
A method of monitoring data flow in a communications network, wherein the communications network comprising a plurality of hubs, each of the hubs comprising a plurality of repeaters, at least one of which is a supervisory repeater, the method comprising:(a) transmitting repeater state information between the repeaters within a hub on a first local signal line interconnecting only the repeaters within the hub, the repeater state information indicating whether a repeater in the hub is transmitting data;(b) translating the repeater state information into hub state information which indicates whether any repeater in the hub is transmitting data and whether a data collision between the repeaters in the hub has occurred;(c) transmitting the hub state information between the supervisor repeaters on a global signal line interconnecting each supervisory repeater of each of the hubs;(d) translating the hub state information into global state information which indicates whether any repeater in the hub is transmitting data and whether a data collision between the repeaters in any hub has occurred; and(e) transmitting the global state information between the repeaters within each hub on a second local signal line interconnecting only the repeaters within each hub.