The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 23, 2005
Filed:
Mar. 27, 2003
Lee Daniel Feinberg, Silver Spring, MD (US);
BO Pedersen, Annapolis, MD (US);
Ronald Dale Esman, Burke, VA (US);
John Hagopian, Harwood, MD (US);
Cathal Mahon, Hellerup, DK;
Brent Ashley Miller, Baltimore, MD (US);
M. Imran Hayee, Columbia, MD (US);
Ronald E. Johnson, Pasaden, MD (US);
Nandakumar Ramanujam, Morganville, NJ (US);
Lee Daniel Feinberg, Silver Spring, MD (US);
Bo Pedersen, Annapolis, MD (US);
Ronald Dale Esman, Burke, VA (US);
John Hagopian, Harwood, MD (US);
Cathal Mahon, Hellerup, DK;
Brent Ashley Miller, Baltimore, MD (US);
M. Imran Hayee, Columbia, MD (US);
Ronald E. Johnson, Pasaden, MD (US);
Nandakumar Ramanujam, Morganville, NJ (US);
Dorsal Networks, Inc., Columbia, MD (US);
Abstract
A collapsed ring fiber optic system includes a service path and a protection path provides at a shallow water portion of the fiber optic system, to deal with any fiber cuts that may occur at the shallow water portion without loss of main trunk bandwidth. The service and protection paths meet at a branch point, which is preferably located at a deep water portion of the fiber optic system. A passive combiner or a 1×2 switch is provided at the branch unit, along with a detector and a processor, to determine whether any signals are being received from the service path, and if not, to reconfigure the system to accept signals from the protection path. At another shallow water portion of the fiber optic system, nearby where a destination is located, the signal provided on the optical path over the deep water portion is split into a service path and a protection path, to provide redundancy to deal with any fiber cuts that may occur. The fiber optic system may also be utilized for a land-based system, having high probability of fiber cut regions and low probability of fiber cut regions.