Estimating system and traffic data in a DOCSIS system

1. A method for determining system data in a data over cable service interface specification (DOCSIS) system, the method comprising:

computing fiber nodes in each media access control (MAC) domain (MD) and MAC Domain CM Service Group (MD-CM-SG);

computing registered cable modems in each MD and MD-CM-SG; and

for each MD and MD-CM-SG, allocating the registered cable modems in each the MD and MD-CM-SG among the fiber nodes in a cable modem-service group (CM-SG) included in a respective MD-CM-SG; and

computing the registered cable modems for each fiber node;

wherein computing the number of fiber nodes in each MD and MD-CM-SG comprises utilizing the DOCSIS Management Information Base (MIB) object docsIf3MdNodeStatusEntry to obtain the MD and MD-CM-SGs and fiber nodes for each MD and MD-CM-SG.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein computing the number of registered cable modems in each MD and MD-CM-SG comprises utilizing the DOCIS Management Information Base (MIB) object docsIf3CmtsCmRegStatusEntry to retrieve the registration status of each CM in the DOCSIS system and a the corresponding MD and MD-CM-SG to which the CM belongs and incrementing a number of registered cable modems in the MD and MD-CM-SGs by one when a registered cable modem is found to allocated to the MD and MD-CM-SGs.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the number of registered cable modems in the MD and MD-CM-SG are equally distributed among the fiber nodes in the CM-SG included in the MD and MD-CM-SG.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein computing the registered cable modems for each fiber node comprises, for each fiber node, adding the registered cable modems allocated to the fiber node from all MD and MD-CM-SG.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

determining the Downstream Service Groups (DS-SGs) of the DOCSIS system; and

computing the number of registered cable modems in each of the DS-SG.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein determining the DS-SGs of the DOCSIS system comprises grouping the fiber nodes that have the same MD-CM-SGs combinations in the DS-SG.

7. The method of claim 5 wherein computing the number of registered cable modems in each DS-SG comprises for each DS-SG, adding registered cable modems allocated to each fiber node of the DS-SG.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

determining Upstream Service Groups (US-SGs) associated with the DOCSIS system; and

computing the number of cable modems in each of the US-SGs.

9. A system for determining system data in a data over cable service interface specification (DOCSIS) system, the system comprising:

means for computing fiber nodes in each media access control (MAC) Domain (MD) and MAC Domain-Cable Modem-Service Group; (MD-CM-SG)

means for computing registered cable modems in each MD and MD-CM-SG; and

means for allocating, for each MD and MD-CM-SG, the registered cable modems in each MD and MD-CM SGs among fiber nodes in a Cable Modem-Service Group (CM-SG) included in a respective the MD and MD-CM-SG; and

means for computing the registered cable modems for each fiber node;

wherein the means for computing the fiber nodes in each MD and MD-CM-SG comprises utilizing the DOCSIS Management Information Base (MIB) object docsIf3MdNodeStatusEntry to obtain the MD and MD-CM-SGs and the fiber nodes for each MD and MD-CM-SG.

10. The system of claim 9 , further comprising:

means for determining Downstream Service Groups (DS-SGs) associated with the DOCSIS system; and

means for computing the registered cable modems in each of the DS-SG.

11. A method of computing traffic data in a data over cable service interface specification (DOCSIS) system comprising:

computing the amount of time a cable modem spends in an inactive state over an observation period, an inactive time;

computing the amount of time the cable modem spends offline over the observation period, an offline time;

computing the amount of time the cable modem spends in an active state over the observation period, an active time; and

computing an online time of the cable modem as the active time plus the inactive time.

12. The method of claim 11 further comprising computing a percentage of time the cable modem is online as the online time divided by the sum of the online time and the offline time multiplied by 100%.

13. The method of claim 11 further comprising computing the percentage of time a cable modem is active as the active time divided by the online time multiplied by 100%.