Patent attributes
Embodiments determine failures of a network element (NE) in an outside plant utilizing a connectivity trail that indicates NEs starting at the headend and ending at a distribution tap that serves one or more customer premise devices associated to a customer account. Embodiments determine a failed NE that serves the highest number of customers for which a trouble is reported to a ticketing system. Embodiments avoid reporting downstream child NEs that may be performing poorly due to the upstream failed parent NE. Embodiments associate the one or more customer premise devices, and a customer account with respective NEs of the connectivity trail, perform operational metric tests to determine whether a customer premise device associated with a customer account has failed, determine when an NE of the connectivity trail has failed. Embodiments also include rebooting the failed NE and/or notifying a ticketing system accordingly.