Lucent Technologies Inc.

Other

Alcatel-lucent USA Inc.

Alcatel Lucent

William A Thompson

Robert D Feldman

David A Sadler

Gerard T Lingner, Iii

Mahan Movassaghi

John G Israel

Singanallur R Thangavelu

Xiang Liu

John W Maher

Daniel A Fishman

Torben N Nielsen

Magaly Spector

Heribert Joseph Blach

Narasimhan Raghavan

Jinpin Ying

Bradley A McKay

Dirk Bode

Ellen Eng

Vincent J Silverio

Mile Radovanovic

Richard Adleman

Peter L Bartman

Janet M Greenberg

Mary Socratous

John Mark Ritchey

Victor S Hyun

Prasanna R Nadhumi

James J Burke

Yan Shi

Vincent John Silverio

A method and apparatus for controlling the power level of an optical signal includes detecting the loss of a supervisory signal counter-propagating in an optical fiber.

Method and apparatus for automatically controlling optical signal power in optical transmission systems

An optical add/drop multiplexer (OADM) adapted to route optical signals having at least two different bit rates. The OADM has at least two sets of DWDM channels, e.g., with channels in a first set having a first bandwidth value suitable for the transmission of 10-Gb/s signals and channels in a second set having a second bandwidth value suitable for the transmission of 40-Gb/s signals. The first and second sets occupy two different spectral bands and the first set has two subsets of interleaved channels. In one embodiment, the OADM has first and second optical branches adapted to process optical signals corresponding to first and second groups of channels, respectively. The first group includes a first subset from the first set while the second group includes the second set and a second subset from the first set. Advantageously, OADMs of the invention may be used to create independent processing paths for different groups of channels. As a result, a communication system having those OADMs can be upgraded, e.g., to add a new 40-Gb/s service and/or to populate additional 10-Gb/s channels substantially without interrupting the 10-Gb/s service already in place.

Optical add/drop multiplexer having a banded channel configuration

A method for the automatic provisioning of a network element (NE) includes receiving a client signal at a tunable optical translator (OT) in the NE, determining the set of channels supported by the OT that are able to correspond to the client signal, eliminating the channels that have connections, that may be present on a line side of the NE in a laser off scan process, or that have not been equipped or otherwise provisioned for transmission, tuning the OT to each of the remaining channels and determining the optical power level of each channel on a line side of the NE in a laser on scan process. Subsequently, the channel with the highest power level is selected to transmit the client signal and associations for a point to point connection for that channel are added for that OT to a database of associations for the NE.

Method, apparatus and system for the automatic provisioning of a network element

A method and apparatus for controlling transients in an optical signal propagating along an optical fiber path interconnecting a plurality of network elements employs a power threshold to determine an appropriate response given a change in optical signal power.

Method and apparatus for controlling power transients in an optical communication system

A bi-directional optical transmission system according to the present invention provides transport of x optical channels over n nodes. The system supports two-way transport of the x channels over a single fiber connecting each of the nodes in sequence. The system is advantageous in that only two optical transmission bands are utilized in order to achieve minimal loss in the separation of bands. The use of only two bands permits the utilization of low-loss wide band thin film optical filters to combine and separate the signals at each node. A reflection port of this filter is used to carry oppositely directed signals of the second band from the bi-directional fiber to an optical amplifier for the second band. An alternate arrangement of the optical filters in the two separate bands is chosen to maximize the optical performance of the overall system and significantly reduce insertion losses.

Bi-directional optical transmission using dual channel bands

Lasing of an optical channel at a particular wavelength is substantially prevented in an optical ring network by automatically verifying the presence of a break, e.g., termination, in the ring for an optical channel of a particular wavelength before allowing a node in the network to establish a 'pass through' connection for that optical channel. More specifically, a node attempting to establish a 'pass through' route for an optical channel received from another node is prevented from establishing the necessary connections to do so until it is confirmed that the optical channel of interest has been added to the ring or dropped from the ring at another node, thus indicating the presence of a &#x201c;break&#x201d; in the optical ring for that optical channel of interest.

Method for preventing lasing in an optical ring network

An optical wavelength add/drop multiplexer (WADM) is configured to add or drop two or more signals each associated with one of a plurality of channels in a wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) signal. The WADM comprises an optical circulator that is optically coupled at one port to two or more serially interconnected fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs), and is optically coupled at another port to a thin film filter including two or more serially interconnected thin film filter elements. Each of the two or more FBGs is matched with a thin film filter element, both arranged to be responsive to signals associated with one of the plurality of channels. Bandwidth and dispersion properties for the FBGs are selected to permit operation of the WADM at two distinct signal data rates. To equalize associated insertion losses in embodiments of the invention arranged to add or drop two or more signals, the FBGs are matched to the thin film filter elements in inverse order with respect to their optical distance from the optical circulator.

Optical wavelength add/drop multiplexer for dual signal transmission rates

Each of a series of optical amplifiers is arranged such that, in response to detecting particular stimuli occurring at an input or receipt of an adjustment start message from an upstream amplifier, adjusts certain amplifier parameters using small steps and completes the adjustment using large steps if it does not receive the adjustment start message within a predetermined period of time of starting the adjustment in response to detecting the stimuli. If the optical amplifier receives the adjustment start message, then it continues to perform the adjustment and completes the adjustment using large steps when it receives an adjustment done message from the upstream optical amplifier. At that point, the optical amplifier sends an adjustment done message to the next downstream amplifier if it is not the tail-end amplifier.

System based control of optical amplifier transmission functions

The channel protection facility in a two-fiber bi-directional line switched ring network may be significantly enhanced by protecting the service channels in one of the fibers with corresponding protection channels in the other fiber and vice-versa. Thus, if a failure occurs such that the content of the service channels cannot be forwarded to an upstream point, then, without having to perform a wavelength conversion function, the service channels may be substituted for the protection channels in the other fiber and forwarded to the upstream point in the opposite direction via the ring network.

Signal protection system for bi-direction ring network

In communication system, multiple communication units are selected to receive a message via multiple broadcast units. A communication resource controller identifies a set of broadcast units needed to transmit the message, which are further identified as contending and non-contending broadcast units based on contention information. Identification of each of the contending broadcast units is stored and the non-contending broadcast units are allowed to simultaneously transmit the message. When contention for the contending broadcast units is alleviated, the contending broadcast units transmit the message.

Method for transmitting a message to multiple communication units

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Red Bank, NJ, United States of America

William A Thompson