Identifying Link Layer Home Network Topologies Using HTIP

In this article, we propose a method to identify the link layer home network topology, motivated by applications to cost reduction of support centers. If the topology of home networks can be identified automatically and efficiently, it is easier for operators of support centers to identify fault points. We use MAC address forwarding tables (AFTs) which can be collected from network devices via HTIP (ITU-T G.9973, Home network Topology Identifying Protocol). There are a couple of existing methods for identifying a network topology using AFTs, but they are insufficient for our purpose; they are not applicable to some specific network topologies that are typical in home networks. Our method proposed in this paper can handle such topologies. Furthermore, our method is faster because, for detecting a leaf node at each round, the existing methods use a result of set inclusion operations, while our method only needs to check the sizes of sets, which is much less costly. We also give experimental evaluations to show the advantages of our method.