Patent ID: 8837295

Claim:
A diagnostic tool, comprising: an operator interface and a computer which together facilitate the following: creating a request message which contains information including a port identification (ID) that is associated with a target device, a multicast channel corresponding to a television channel, and a stream type corresponding to a high definition television channel, a standard television channel, or a streaming radio channel; sending the request message to a first node in a layer 2 aggregation network associated with said target device; receiving a first reply message which contains static subscriber information from said first node in the layer 2 aggregation network, where said first node also forwards the request message to a second node associated with said target device; receiving a second reply message which contains dynamic subscriber information from said second node; analyzing the static subscriber information and the dynamic subscriber information respectively received from said first node and said second node; wherein said static subscriber information includes one or more of the following: user permitted to watch the multicast channel, user not permitted to watch the multicast channel, link speed, user subscribed to high speed internet, and user not subscribed to high speed internet; and wherein said dynamic subscriber information includes one or more of the following: downstream bandwidth available for user of said target device, current downstream bandwidth usage by user of said target device, upstream bandwidth available for user of said target device, current upstream bandwidth usage by user of said target device, downstream bandwidth available for a particular stream type sent to said target device, and current downstream bandwidth usage by a particular stream type sent to said target device.