Patent ID: 8898526

Claim:
An apparatus for diagnosing a communication link carrying a bitstream that has been encoded using at least one forward error correction coding technique, the apparatus comprising: a memory operative to store: a bitstream error type database that stores at least one bitstream error type; and a bitstream position database comprising an association of at the least one bitstream error type with at least one bit position, wherein the association identifies at least one communication transmission cause; and a processor in communication with the memory, the processor being operative to execute computer-readable instructions, which, when executed, cause the processor to: receive a bitstream of data transmitted over a communication link, wherein the bitstream of data is encoded using at least one forward error correction coding technique; detect an error in the bitstream of data based on the at least one forward error correction coding technique; classify the error in the bitstream of data as the at least one bitstream error type based on information stored in the bitstream error type database; and determine a communication link diagnosis that comprises the at least one communication transmission cause based on the classified error.