[54] PERFORMANCE MONITORING OF DSO CHANNEL VIA D4 CHANNEL BANK
[75] Inventors: Clifford L. Hall, Huntsville; Norman R. Harris, Madison; Stephen T. Killian, Huntsville; Jeffrey B. Wells.
Madison, all of Ala.
[73] Assignee: Adtran, Inc., Huntsville, Ala.
[ * ] Notice: The term of this patent shall not extend beyond the expiration date of Pat. No. 5,473,665.
[21] Appl. No.: 528,139
[22] Filed: Sep. 14,1995
Related U.S. Application Data
[63] Continuation of Ser. No. 27,948, Mar. 8, 1993, Pat No. 5,473,665.
[51] Int Cl.s H04M 3/30
[52] U.S. CI 379/29; 379/22
[58] Field of Search 375/224. 225,
375/227; 370/15, 241, 247, 249, 251; 379/5.
27, 29, 9, 12, 22
[56] References Cited
U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS
4,641,299 2/1987 Kemper et al 370/15
4,736,402 4/1988 Landis 375/224
4,949,355 8/1990 Dykeetal 375/224
5,018,184 5/1991 Abrams et al 370/15
5,054,050 10/1991 Burke et al 379/29
5,140,625 8/1992 Reumetal 375/224
Primary Examiner—Wellington Chin
Assistant Examiner—Jean B. Corrielus
Attorney, Agent, or Firm—Charles E. Wands
[57] ABSTRACT
Non-intrusive performance monitoring of a DSO channel between a customer premises interface and a D4 channel bank includes an augmentation of existing channel bank equipment and a digital services communication device terminating the DSO link at the customer site. An auxiliary signalling and performance monitoring arrangement is remotely accessible by a non-resident control site, for example by way of an RS-232 port of a line interface unit of the channel bank, thereby enabling the control site to perform prescribed network supervisory tasks with respect to one or more selected DSO links, including provisioning of their associated loop equipment and performance monitoring of each DSO loop. Office channel unit data port and line interface components of the channel bank are modified to provide bidirectional signalling capability via the receive segment of the channel bank's internal communications link. The signalling format on the bidirectional signalling link is defined so as to support both the transmission of incoming (received DS1) signalling traffic from the line interface unit to an office channel unit, and the bidirectional exchange of performance-monitoring command and response messages. Aperformance monitoring arrangement, installed in the channel unit and the digital communications network interface, monitors at least one prescribed performance aspect of the DSO channel and forwards performance signals to the line interface unit over the bidirectional signalling link.
30 Claims, 15 Drawing Sheets
