Patent ID: 8441939

Claim:
A method of operating a cable modem termination system having a data link layer connection to a cable modem, the cable modem being operative to log an operational error of the cable modem in a system level log file maintained by the cable modem, comprising: establishing layer-2 logging communications with the cable modem by sending to the cable modem a message instructing the cable modem to send the system level log file to the cable modem termination system using the layer-2 logging communications, the layer-2 logging communications being usable by the cable modem in the absence of network-layer connectivity between the cable modem and the cable modem termination system; and subsequently receiving an error message including the system level log file from the cable modem via the layer-2 logging communications, the error message generated by the cable modem in response to the message from the cable modem termination system and indicating the operational error of the cable modem.