At&t Bell Laboratories

David A Gaulke

Thomas M O'Dell

Ricky L Overmyer

An arrangement that enables an adjunct processor to determine the service status of switching system communication ports to which the adjunct processor is connected, without reliance on switch-to-adjunct status-conveying messages. In-service and idle ones of the ports participate in calls on a rotating basis. Following receipt of N calls, where N is the number of in-service ports connected to the adjunct processor, the arrangement determines whether each port that is presently designated as being in-service and idle has participated in one communication before a port has participated in a second communication. The arrangement then treats as out-of-service any port presently designated as being in-service that has been so determined a predetermined number of sequential times. It also selectively designates as in-service ports that have participated in communications since the last determination had been made.

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Westminster, CO, United States of America

David A Gaulke