Tellium, Inc.

Telcordia Technologies, Inc.

John K Gamelin

Krishna Bala

W John Tomlinson

Gee-Kung Chang

Georgios Nicos Ellinas

Charles A Brackett

Pankaj H Bhatt

Mamun R Rashid Khandker

Muhammed Zafar Iqbal

An optical cross-connect system and method allows service providers to economically and efficiently handle capacity upgrades to meet future demands. The optical cross-connect can be embodied as a three-stage switch having a first, a middle, and a last stage. Capacity upgrades may be accomplished by adding additional first and last stage switches to meet increased demand and by replacing the middle stage switches. Accordingly, the original first and last stage switches may be retained in the upgraded optical cross-connect. The resulting optical cross-connect may include both optical and electronic components and the upgrade may be performed without interrupting service.

Scalable optical cross-connect system and method transmitter/receiver protection

An optical matrix protection system is described. Optical signals that are cross-connected by a N&times;N matrix switch are routed through alternative protection paths using an optical matrix protection system. The optical matrix protection system includes a N&times;1 optical switch and a 1&times;N optical switch. An input port of the 1&times;N optical switch is coupled to an output port of the N&times;1 optical switch. Input ports of the N&times;1 optical switch are connected to a plurality of 1&times;2 optical switches, which selectively switch input optical signals to either the N&times;N matrix switch or to the N&times;1 optical switch. Output ports of the 1&times;N optical switch are connected to a plurality of 2&times;1 optical switches, which selectively switch optical signals from either the N&times;N matrix switch or laid the 1&times;N optical switch to an output line.

Optical matrix protection system

A reconfigurable multiwavelength network element includes a first demultiplexer unit for demultiplexing a first multiplexed optical signal from a first optical fiber into a first plurality of optical outputs; a second demultiplexer unit for demultiplexing a second multiplexed optical signal from a second optical fiber into a second plurality of optical outputs; a first multiplexer unit having first optical inputs for receiving signals to be multiplexed together; a second multiplexer unit having second optical inputs for receiving signals to be multiplexed together; and a cross-connect unit having first and second portions, the first portion directing signals received from at least a first one of the first plurality of optical outputs and a first one of the second plurality of optical outputs to a first one of the first optical inputs and a first one of the second optical inputs, the second portion directing signals received from at least a second one of the first plurality of optical outputs and a second one of the second plurality of optical outputs to a second one of the first optical inputs and a second one of the second optical inputs.

Reconfigurable multiwavelength network elements

A cross-connect for a multi-ring, multi-channel telecommunications network, especially for a wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) optical network. Each of the interconnected rings is self-healing by provision of a redundant counter-rotating ring or excess capacity on pairs of counter-rotating rings. Because an interconnect between self-healing rings does not need to connect working to protection fibers, or similarly redundant fibers, the complexity of the interconnect can be substantially reduced. For several important architectures, the interconnect can be decomposed into one or two 3x3 interconnects. Further, a wide-sense non-blocking 3x3 interconnect can be advantageously implemented as four 2x2 switches, which may be a basic building block of optical switches. A novel algorithm is available to add new paths through such a 3x3 interconnect. The interconnect can be decomposed into one or two 4x4 interconnects when another pair of add/drop lines are added. Such an architecture provides full connectivity between user nodes connected to the add/drop lines and user nodes attached to the rings.

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Red Bank, NJ, United States of America

John K Gamelin