A method and apparatus to permit testing of Layer 2 and higher services
provisioned for a port on a digital subscriber line access multiplexer
(DSLAM) line card. Each line card is provisioned with a virtual port, a
virtual port cross-connect function, and a virtual port tunneling
function. The virtual port can be linked to any physical port on the line
card. A test host can link to the virtual port from anywhere in a network
to perform verification of end-to-end service provisioning and
functionality throughout a network.