A heartbeat monitoring apparatus monitors the status of CPE devices based on received inform messages including events or event codes and heartbeat monitoring parameters. The heartbeat monitoring apparatus may generate and send alarm messages to external systems upon detecting a failure (e.g., offline, reboot, etc.) status of a CPE device. The heartbeat monitoring parameters may include an indication of which CPE devices (e.g., type of device, location of devices, or the like) are to be monitored, a heartbeat interval and subinterval, the frequency of a heartbeat check for alarms, or the like. The inform messages may include HEARTBEAT events for the CPE devices.