Patent ID: 7881607

Claim:
A method of identifying a passive optical network failure comprising: identifying, with a control optical network terminal (ONT) identification module, a control ONT from among multiple ONTs in a passive optical network, the control ONT functioning normally with a normal, non-data, output signal level, wherein the control ONT is one of the multiple ONTs that fails to range when the multiple ONTs are requested to range but does range when outputs of at least all of the other ONTs that failed to range are disabled so they cannot transmit to an Optical Line Terminal (OLT); identifying, with a test ONT identification module, a test ONT from among the multiple ONTs, the test ONT potentially malfunctioning with an above normal, non-data, output signal level, wherein the test ONT is one of the multiple ONTs that fails to range when the multiple ONTs are requested to range and also does not range when outputs of at least all of the other ONTs that failed to range are disabled so they cannot transmit to the OLT; and determining, with a verification module, whether the test ONT is actually malfunctioning by attempting to range the control ONT and the test ONT and observing if both ONTs fail to range.