Patent ID: 7239680

Claim:
A method of determining information about a communication channel using an adaptive filter coupled to the channel, the adaptive filter including adaptive filter coefficients, comprising: a) comparing the filter coefficients to filter coefficient thresholds; b) determining if one of a communication link and a channel fault exists, and if a channel fault exists determining if one of, i) a cable open condition exists in the channel, and ii) a cable short condition exists in the channel; and c) indicating whether the channel is one of linked, open, and shorted; d) determining when a given filter coefficient one of meets and exceeds a corresponding filter coefficient threshold; e) comparing only a further subset of filter coefficients to corresponding ones of a subset of the filter coefficient thresholds; f) identifying a largest one of the given filter coefficient and the further subset of filter coefficients; and g) determining the channel length based on the largest coefficient identified in the previous step.