ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 6 -- United States Patent no. 12,283,985, issued on April 22, was assigned to FRONTIER COMMUNICATIONS HOLDINGS LLC (Dallas).

"Systems and methods of mesh-based fault detection in passive optical networks" was invented by John Valdez (Copper Canyon, Texas), Bryan Pauling (Rochester, N.Y.) and Eduardo Flores (Frisco, Texas).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A PON system includes both a PON via which optical services are delivered and a wireless network overlaying the PON. The wireless network may be a self-organizing wireless mesh network, and may generally operate as a logical signaling pathway via which information regarding optical states/statuses of PON components and/or r...