Patent ID: 8064364

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, for multiple network devices distributed throughout a geographic region, measured performance characteristic values corresponding to those network devices; identifying device groups based on evaluations of the received values, wherein each device group has a different subset of the multiple network devices as members and at least two members and is identified at least in part based on the received values corresponding to the group members meeting at least one pre-established criterion, said identifying further comprising (a) selecting one of the multiple network devices as a focus device, (b) identifying others of the multiple network devices located proximate to the focus device, (c) evaluating the received values corresponding to the focus device and the devices identified in step (b), (d) classifying the focus device and the devices identified in step (b) as a problem device grouping based on the evaluations of step (c), (e) performing at least one more iteration of steps (a) through (d), wherein in each iteration a different one of the multiple network devices is selected as the focus device, and (f) identifying one of said device groups by combining the problem device groupings identified in separate performances of step (d) and having common members; and communicating information about the identified device groups.