Patent ID: 7433323

Claim:
A method of fault isolation on a communication network having a metallic line tester (MLT) and an Internet Service Provider (ISP) communicatively coupled to an edge gateway that provisions voice and/or data services to a customer via a conductive line, the method comprising the steps of: (a) causing the MLT to retrieve from a database a network address of a modem of the customer on the communication network, the internet protocol (IP) parameters of the customer's modem and the asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) parameters of the customer's modem; (b) synchronizing a modem of the edge gateway with the customer's modem at the network address; (c) installing the IP and ATM parameters in a modem of a test head that is coupled to the edge gateway; (d) synchronizing the test head modem with the edge gateway modem operating at the same synchronization rate that it synchronized with the customer's modem in step (b); (e) following synchronization in step (d) causing the edge gateway modem to issue a Ping test command to an IP address of a data network of the ISP; (f) receiving the result of the Ping test at the test head modem; and (g) logging the result of the Ping test with the MLT.