A MEP has a persistent defect condition. A notification (fault alarm) is sent to the management entity with the OID of the MEP that has detected the fault. Whenever a MEP has a persistent defect, it may or may not generate a Fault Alarm to warn the system administrator of the problem, as controlled by the MEP Fault Notification Generator State Machine and associated Managed Objects. Only the highest-priority defect, as shown in Table 20-1, is reported in the Fault Alarm. If a defect with a higher priority is raised after a Fault Alarm has been issued, another Fault Alarm is issued.