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:
Jun. 27, 2017
Filed:
Mar. 12, 2014
British Telecommunications Public Limited Company, London, GB;
Andrew Lord, London, GB;
BRITISH TELECOMMUNICATIONS PUBLIC LIMITED COMPANY, London, GB;
Abstract
An optical switch suitable for use in an add/drop of an optical network node having F>1 optical fiber per direction, the F fibers together carrying optical signals comprising up to N independent wavelength channels, is disclosed. The switch includes an Optical Cross-Connect (OXC) having F input ports and N output ports. F optical splitters are connected to the OXC, the input and output ports of the optical splitters defining ports of the OXC. The OXC is controllable to switch optical signals arriving at any of the F switch input ports to the input port of any of the F optical splitters such that each switch input port is switched to an optical splitter having at least as many splitter output ports as the number of independent wavelength channels received at the switch input port. A method for splitting optical signals is also disclosed.