Expert Systems for AT&T Switched Network Maintenance

Abstract

As AT&T's telecommunications network becomes increasingly sophisticated and complex, advanced operations systems capabilities are needed to provision, manage, and maintain the network. To meet this need, artificial intelligence concepts are being incorporated into operations systems. This paper focuses on an expert system for switched circuit operations that builds on AT&T's Testing Operations Provisioning Administration System (TOPAS). The TOPAS Expert System (TOPAS-ES) is a real-time, distributed, multitasking expert system for switched circuit network maintenance that uses the diagnostic knowledge of experts in network maintenance to analyze network problems and locate faults.