Patent ID: 7773877

Claim:
A method for locating channel failures in an Automatically Switched Optical Network, comprising: determining that a channel alarm is incurred by a channel failure according to alarm information or alarm messages; after determining that the channel alarm is incurred by the channel failure, a head node and an end node checking channel alarm information at a forward ingress and a reverse ingress, respectively; the end node sending a channel alarm message to notify the head node of the channel alarm information detected; the head node deciding the channel failure occurs inside the network according to the channel alarm information detected and the channel alarm message sent by the end node; wherein if the head node detects no channel alarm information at the forward ingress of the head node, but receives the channel alarm message sent by the end node within a predefined period of time, the head node determining that the channel failure occurs inside the network; if the head node detects channel alarm information at the reverse ingress of the head node and receives no the channel alarm message sent by the end node within the predefined period of time, the head node determining that the channel failure occurs inside the network; the head node transmitting the channel alarm information detected or received in signaling along an original path to a downstream node in sequence, comparing alarm information detected at an ingress with the channel alarm information carried in signaling, and identifying the position of the channel failure in the fiber inside the network according to a comparison result.