Method and apparatus for determining the topology of a hybrid-fiber coaxial cable plant
OwnerMichael Jaimie Cooperinventor
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Abstract
A topology discovery technique for automatically determining the network structure of a hybrid fiber coax or all coax cable plant is disclosed. The resulting topology is structured in terms of fiber nodes, amplifiers, and taps. The location of customer devices such as cable modems, set-top boxes, and telephony terminal adapters are identified within the resulting topology. The discovery technique relies on measurements made only at the headend location of the cable plant.
Claims18
A method for adaptively determining the network topology of a Radio Frequency (RF) communications network, wherein the network topology includes communications components, said method comprising:
- (a) determining at least one statistical metric of a communications signal between a network device and the headend on at least two different RF communication channels;
- and
- (b) establishing groupings of one or more devices based on the statistical metric as measured on each of the RF communication channels.
A method for adaptively determining the tap location within a network topology of an RF communications network, said method comprising:
- (a) determining the terminal network device transmit power level required to provide a nominal input signal level at the headend;
- and
- (b) applying clustering algorithms to the parameter:
- terminal network device transmit power level.
An article of manufacture comprising:
- a computer program product comprising a computer-usable medium having a computer-readable code therein for adaptively determining the network topology of a Radio Frequency (RF) communications network, said article of manufacturer comprising:
- a computer-readable program code module for determining the number of fiber nodes combined at the headend of an RF communications network;
- a computer-readable program code module for determining the specific network terminal devices present on each fiber node;
- a computer-readable program code module for determining the specific network terminal devices present at each specific amplifier depth;
- a computer-readable program code module for determining the specific network terminal devices present on each unique amplifier sequence at a specific amplifier depth;
- and
- a computer-readable program code module for determining the specific network terminal devices present at each tap location for a specific amplifier sequence.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.