SIGNAL PROTECTION AND MONITORING SYSTEM

摘要

A redundancy switch (44) provides interfacing of network signals to spare network processors (46) in the event of a failure of a main network processor (42). A redundancy switch (44) allows for monitoring and diagnostic operations to be performed on network electrical signals without interrupting traffic flow on inbound and outbound paths. A redundancy switch (44) performs a loopback diagnostic by routing signals from transmitter portions of the spare network processors (46) to selected receiver portions. The redundancy switch (44) includes a receiver interface unit (90) and a transmitter interface unit (92) capable of routing inbound and outbound customer signals to and from the spare processors (46) for monitoring, diagnostic, and sparing purposes.