The Cisco ONS 15454 DS3 Card, with Enhanced Performance Monitoring, gives service providers improved network visibility, providing them a means of early facility failure detection. It also allows service providers to continue to provide the highest levels of service availability through service guarantees.The new Enhanced DS3-12E and the DS3N-12E cards can be installed in any of the Cisco ONS 15454 shelf assembly's 12 multiservice interface slots. Both the DS3-12E and the DS3N-12E cards provide 12 Telcordia compliant, GR-499-CORE DS3 interfaces that operate at 44.736 Mbps over a single 75-ohm 728A (or equivalent coaxial span). The DS3-12E card can be provisioned as a working or protect card in a 1: 1 protect scheme or as working card in 1: N protection scheme. The DS3N-12E can operate as a working or as a protection card in either 1: 1 or 1: N protection schemes. The DS3N-12E can protect up to five working DS3-12E or DS3N-12 cards. Other than the protection capability, the DS3-12E functions in the same manner as the DS3N-12E. In addition to providing electrical DS3 equivalents, the enhanced DS3 cards allow greater performance monitoring capabilities than the previous generation DS3(N)-12 cards. The DS3-12E and DS3N-12E detects several different logic bits that may be in error within a DS3 frame, allowing the Cisco ONS 15454 to identify a degrading DS3 facility caused by upstream electronics (such as DS3 framer).