Patent ID: 7957305

Claim:
A method, comprising: detecting if a cable modem seeking connection (CM-SC) to a first cable modem termination system (CMTS) has the same media access control (MAC) address as any cable modems previously registered (PR-CM) on said first CMTS, if said CM-SC has the same MAC address as a PR-CM, determining if the location of the CM-SC is the same as a last-known location of the PR-CM, wherein the location of the CM-SC is specified by the cable interface on which the CM-SC appears and at least one of the US port on the interface that services the CM-SC, the DS port on the interface that services the CM-SC, the Fiber Node (FN) serving the CM-SC, and the Load Balancing (LB) group descriptor of the CM-SC on the CMTS, and if said locations differ, sending a ping to the last-known location of said PR-CM, whereby if said PR-CM responds to said ping, it is determined that said CM-SC is a clone based on two different cable modems, the CM-SC and the PR-CM, having the same MAC address but existing in two different physical locations simultaneously, and if said PR-CM does not respond to said ping, it is determined that said CM-SC is in fact said PR-CM at a new location.