Fault Isolation System and Method

A system for isolating a fault in a subscriber network comprising:

• a correlator, wherein the correlator comprises instructions for:
• identifying non-responsive subscriber devices connected to the network through an active device;
• obtaining a device identifier of the last active device through which each non-responsive subscriber device connects to the network, wherein the device identifier comprises:
• a first character field comprising a hub identifier;
• a second character field concatenated with the first character field,
• wherein the second character field comprises a node identifier;
• subsequent character fields sequentially concatenated beginning with the second character field, wherein a subsequent character field comprises a cascade number and wherein the value of the cascade number identifies a branch of the network relative to a device from which the branch emanates;
• a first separator interposed into the device identifier before a subsequent character field indicative of a branch from a first level active device that terminates at a second level active device;
• and
• a second separator interposed into the device identifier before a subsequent character field indicative of a branch from an active device that terminates at a passive device;
• correlating the last active device identifiers associated with the non-responsive subscriber devices to identify a furthest upstream active device as a likely common cause of the non-responsiveness of the non-responsive subscriber devices.