Performance of lifetest using CMTS as a proxy

A cable network, comprising:

• a cable modem termination system in communication with a plurality of network elements selected from the group consisting of cable modems, broadband telephony interfaces, and multimedia terminal adaptors, said cable modem termination system being adapted to issue ranging requests to said network elements from time to time and determine transmission time delays associated with each of said network elements based on responses to the ranging requests, and to store responses to the ranging requests in at least one file;
• and
• an element management system in communication with said cable modem termination system, said element management system being adapted to obtain status information about said network elements from said at least one file,
• wherein status information indicating a status of said network elements is determined based on the responses by a network element to the ranging request.

A method for obtaining status information on network elements in a cable network, comprising the steps of:

• providing a cable network comprising a data switching system in communication with a plurality of network elements;
• providing a management system for managing the network elements on the cable network, the management system being in comniunication with the database;
• providing a ranging request signal from the data switching system to each of the network elements of the plurality of network elements, and determining transmission time delays associated with each of said network elements based on responses to the ranging requests;
• determining status information for each of the plurality of network elements based on a response from each of the plurality of network elements to the ranging request signal, respectively;
• storing this status information in a database;
• and
• accessing the status information from the database by way of said management system.