Alcatel Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent USA Inc.

Lucent Technologies Network Systems Gmbh

Wolfgang Thomas

Christian Hermsmeyer

Gerhard Meyer

Dieter Stoll

Angel Molina

Jurgen Rahn

Klaus-Dieter Fritschi

Klaus Fritschi

Jürgen Rahn

An exemplary method and apparatus are provided for transmitting an asynchronous transport signal over an optical fiber section of an Optical Transport Network. Higher order Optical Data Units of an asynchronous transport signal to be transmitted may be encapsulated into outer transport frames that offer a payload rate higher than a nominal bit rate of the asynchronous transport signal. An output optical signal, which contains the outer transport frames with the encapsulated asynchronous transport signal, is generated at a locally generated clock rate and transmitted over an optical fiber section. To encapsulate the asynchronous transport signal, its bit rate is adapted to the payload rate of the outer transport frames, which is derived from the locally generated clock through a justification and stuffing process. The rate adapted transport signal is then synchronously mapped into the outer transport frames at the rate of the locally generated clock.

Method and apparatus for transmitting an asynchronous transport signal over an optical section

The present invention includes method and apparatus for storing provisioned information within the optical switches and retrievable by every controller. The optical switches perform failure isolation according to their provisioning information. The optical switches monitor each channel for loss of signal. The provisioning information is shared autonomously between the optical switches allowing the switches to retrieve the provisioning information of the network topology from any other optical switch in the network. Fault isolation is done by the optical switch on the level of optical switch provisioning following the paradigm of 'single alarm for single fault,' thus avoiding alarm floods and ambiguous alarms, thereby saving the operator time and money.

Fault isolation and provisioning for optical switches

The invention includes a method and apparatus for controlling information available at a network element located at a first hierarchical level in a content distribution network. A method includes determining a subset of content using content forecast information, comparing the determined subset of content to a subset of content available to the network element located at the first hierarchical level, generating a request adapted for modifying the available subset of content in response to a difference between the determined and available subsets of content, and propagating the request toward a network element at a second hierarchical level in the content distribution network, where the first and second hierarchical levels are different. The content may include any information adapted for being distributed from a server to a subscriber terminal (e.g., broadcast multimedia content, content-on-demand, non-streaming content such as files and software patches, and the like, as well as various combinations thereof).

Method and apparatus for controlling information available from content distribution points

The invention includes a method and apparatus for determining the performance of a virtual concatenation group (VCG) signal transporting a client signal over a transport network. A method includes collecting a plurality of performance monitoring indicators associated with a plurality of VCG member signals of the VCG signal, synchronizing the performance monitoring indicators with respect to each other, combining the synchronized performance monitoring indicators to form VCG-level performance monitoring indicators, calculating VCG-level performance monitoring primitive measurements based on the VCG-level performance monitoring indicators, and processing the VCG-level performance monitoring primitive measurements to determine VCG performance.

Method and apparatus for monitoring virtual concatenation group performance

The invention comprises a method and apparatus for computing virtual concatenation group bandwidth data of at least one virtual concatenation group. Specifically, the method comprises determining at least one elementary path of which at least one virtual concatenation group is composed, determining elementary path data associated with the at least one elementary path and computing virtual concatenation group bandwidth data using the elementary path data.

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Nuremberg, Germany

Wolfgang Thomas