US Patent 7711267 Remote management of central office operations

In one implementation, a system detects that a fiber within a fiber optic cable has failed and automatically causes a location of a faulty portion of the fiber to be identified in response to the detecting. In another implementation, a central office includes a first optical patch panel operably coupled to an optical fiber and a second optical patch panel configured to couple the first optical patch panel to a test device. The optical fiber is automatically coupled to the test device in response to one or more signals from a remote management device.