A telecommunications network in accordance with the principles of the invention includes one or more controllers that automatically determine the physical interconnectivity between at least two ports adjacently situated in different network elements. Each end-point, that is, each port, has a unique identification. In an illustrative embodiment, upon the occasion of a network modification, such as the addition of a port to the network, the initiation of a port, or reconfiguration of a link, the two ports attached to a communications path to form a link exchange their "view" of the link. That is, each port sends an identification message to the other port. Each of these messages includes the identification of the sending port and the presumed identification of the receiving port. If at first the ports don't agree, the receiving port updates its view of the link. This process is repeated until both ports agree on the identification of each port within the link.