Method and apparatus for determining the topology of a hybrid-fiber coaxial cable plant

A topology discovery technique for automatically determining the network structure of a hybrid fiber coax or all coax cable plant is disclosed. The resulting topology is structured in terms of fiber nodes, amplifiers, and taps. The location of customer devices such as cable modems, set-top boxes, and telephony terminal adapters are identified within the resulting topology. The discovery technique relies on measurements made only at the headend location of the cable plant.