Patent ID: 7289449

Claim:
An intelligent data concentrator, comprising: a housing having a first surface and a second surface and configured to be mounted substantially within a cavity in a wall in such a way that the first surface is internal to the wall and the second surface is external the cavity and substantially planar with the wall, said housing further comprising; a first interface at the first surface operable to physically couple to a dedicated drop of network cabling terminating within the wall and to communicating couple said intelligent data concentrator to said network, said network having a head end at an opposite end of the network cabling, wherein said head end is a central control site at operable to remotely access said intelligent data concentrator over said network; a second interface at the second surface comprising a plurality of communication ports for communicatively coupling said intelligent data concentrator to a plurality of client devices at said plurality of communication ports such that said client devices are communicatively coupled to said network; means for processing and interpreting data internal to the housing and coupled to said first interface; and fault detection means internal to the housing and coupled to said means for processing and interpreting data, said fault detection means operable to identify, based on a physical location of the housing and communications from the head end, a physical location of a fault in the network.