Patent ID: 7543328

Claim:
In a broadband network having a hybrid fiber coax (HFC) network having network elements operable for communicating telephony, data, and video signals with customer-premises equipment (CPE) of subscriber households, the network elements including a host digital terminal (HDT) for communicating the telephony signals, a cable modem termination system (CMTS) for communicating the data signals, and video equipment for communicating the video signals, a fiber optics network connecting the HDT, CMTS, and video equipment to a fiber optics node, and a coax cable network connecting the fiber optics node to the CPE of the subscriber households, an HFC network management system comprising: a service, design, and inventory (SDI) system having a database operable for storing data indicative of an inventory of the network elements and the CPE in the HFC network and an inventory of CPE which are out of the HFC network, for storing data indicative of configuration and connectivity of the network elements and the CPE in the HFC network, and for storing data indicative of assigned capacity of the HFC network based on the configuration and the connectivity of the network elements and the CPE in the HFC network; and an online provisioning application link (OPAL) operable with the database of the SDI system for provisioning a CPE in the inventory of CPE which are out of the HFC network to be added into the HFC network and for provisioning network elements in the HFC network with the CPE added into the HFC network based on the assigned capacity of the network elements.