James L Small

US Patent:

60786493, Jun 20, 2000

Filed:

Dec 30, 1998

Appl. No.:

9/222789

Inventors:

James M. Small - Hampton VA
Dennis White - Newport News VA

Assignee:

Bell Atlantic Network Services, Inc. - Arlington VA

International Classification:

H04M 1104

US Classification:

379 39

Abstract:

A centralized network total system maintenance facility is provided for processing alarm data received from a plurality of remote monitoring stations at remote terminals in a telephone network. The vast amount of incoming data are collected and logged into a file. The data is processed to provide information as to what alarm on status conditions are current. Under control of a processor at the facility, data collected in the file are read at predetermined intervals and filtered for the current time interval since the last reading. The filtered data are processed to determine whether alarm on status conditions in effect have changed to off status and whether new alarm on status conditions have occurred. All current alarm on status conditions can be displayed with identification of the location, type of alarm condition for a particular sensed parameter, and other information, such as the time the alarm was generated and the priority of the condition. A plurality of user work station terminals having individual access to the data base log are provided at the facility for display of data in accordance with varied criteria selected by the work station attendants.