Alcatel Lucent

Nokia Solutions and Networks Oy

Juergen Loehr

Andreas Leven

Lars Dembeck

Werner Koch

The embodiments of the invention relate to a line switching component separable from a line card of a network node. The line switching component contains at least one input port for receiving an optical input signal from an optical transport network and at least one output port for transmitting an optical output signal to the optical transport network. The line switching component further contains at least one further output port configured to be connected to an input port of at least one optical interface of the line card and at least one further input port configured to be connected to an output port of the at least one further optical interface of the line card. The line switching component further contains a switchable optical path system configured to operate the line switching component in a first operation mode and to operate the line switching component in a second operation mode.

Method for operating a line switching component, line switching component, line card, and network node thereof

A network node, which is designed for switching of time-division multiplex signals; contains a number of line cards (LCI-LCn), a switch fabric (SF) interconnecting the line cards (LCI-LCn), and a control system (CS). The switching fabric (SF) is a cell based switch with one or more switch modules (SET-SEn) adapted to switch cells of a predefined cell format on the basis of addresses contained in cell headers of the cells. The line cards (LCI-LCn) have segmentation and reassembly devices (SARI-SARn) for segmenting input time-division multiplex signals into cells of the preformed cell format and adding address information to each cell and for reassembling cells received from said switch fabric (SF) into output time-division multiplex signals. The control system (CS) is connected to a switched port of the switch fabric (SF) and exchanges with the line cards (LCI-LCn) control and/or Operation, Administration and Maintenance (OAM) messages over the switch fabric (SF) using cells of the preformed cell format.

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Stuttgart, Germany

Juergen Loehr