An optical system is provided comprising a first node and a channel drop add device. The first node is configured to transmit data onto an optical fiber in a first line direction. The channel drop add device (501) is adapted to receive and add channels onto the optical fiber thereby transmitting the data into the first and a second line direction. The network further comprises a second node configured to form a transmitter/receiver function. The second node is configured to receive data on said optical fiber from said first and second line directions. Further, the second node is adapted to synchronize received data from said first and second line directions by delaying the data signals seeing the shortest delay, by a delay device.

Implementations described and claimed herein provide systems and methods for a configurable optical peering fabric to dynamically create a connection between participant sites without any physical site limitations or necessity of specialized client and network provider equipment being located within such a facility. Client sites to a network may connect to a configurable switching element to be interconnected to other client sites in response to a request to connect the first client site with a second site, also connected to network, via the switching element. A request may trigger verification of the requested and, upon validation, transmission of an instruction to the switching element to enable the cross connect within the switching element. The first site and the second site may thus be interconnected via the switching element in response to the request, without the need to co-locate equipment or to manually install a jumper between client equipment.

Aspects of the disclosure provided systems and methods which mitigate negative effects of Spectral Hole Burning when spectral changes are made. Embodiments of the disclosure are directed to methods and systems which preform spectral holes for the range of wavelength channels expected to be used in the optical communication system. In some embodiments this is achieved by controlling the network to ensure optical power is provided at each of a set of idle tone wavelengths distributed across the spectral band used in the optical communication system. In some embodiments a routing and spectrum assignment function satisfies new service requests while maintaining power to the set of idle tone wavelength functions. In some embodiments a network control function configures Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexers to broadcast idle tone wavelengths to provide power to each idle tone in each section.

An optical transmission system includes a first optical transmission apparatus that adds a plurality of error correction codes to a main signal, retrieves, from a first error correction code that is added to the main signal and that corresponds to a first sub-carrier among the plurality of sub-carriers, a first code portion in excess of a predetermined redundancy level, distributes the first code portion to a second sub-carrier among the plurality of sub-carriers, concatenates a second code portion into the first error correction code, and transmits an optical signal including the main signal multiplexed with the first error correction code that has been concatenated with the second code portion.

There is provided an apparatus configured to estimate optical transmission performance in a transmission path of an optical signal, the apparatus including a memory, and a processor coupled to the memory and the processor configured to acquire a first index related to a first transmission performance of an optical signal transmitted through a span group between a first node and an n-th node and a second index related to a second transmission performance of an optical signal transmitted through a span or a span group between the first node and an m-th node, wherein n is an integer of 3 or more, and m is the integer satisfying m<n, and estimate a third index related to a third transmission performance of an optical signal to be transmitted through a span between the m-th node and the n-th node, based on the first index and the second index.

An optical network including an input to receive from an optical network light comprising plural wavelength components. An optical wavelength selective filter, optically connected to the input, extracts a first wavelength component of the plural wavelength components from the light, thereby providing a first optical signal including the first wavelength component and a second optical signal including a remainder of the plural wavelength components a light emitter to provide a modulated broadband optical signal. A first output, optically connected to the optical wavelength selective filter, receives a first portion of the second optical signal for transmission to a light detector and a second output, optically connected to optical wavelength selective filter, receives a second portion of the second optical signal for transmission to the optical network.

The invention relates to an optoelectronic transceiver device comprising a first optical connector (OC1) capable of connection to a first bidirectional optical fibre (OF1), and a second optical connector (OC2) capable of connection to a second bidirectional optical fibre (OF2), the device further comprising: an insertion-extraction module (ADM) capable of: extracting a wave-length (λ.sub.Rx) from a plurality of wavelengths constituting a first optical signal received by the first optical connector (OC1) and transmitting the first optical signal without the extracted wavelength to the second optical connector (OC2); inserting a wavelength (λ.sub.Tx) into a second optical signal received by the second optical connector (OC2) and transmitting the second optical signal with the inserted wavelength to the first optical connector (OC1); an electric-optical conversion module (EC1) capable of providing the insertion-extraction module with the wavelength (λ.sub.Tx) inserted into the second optical signal from an incoming electric signal (Data Tx); and an optical-electric conversion module (EC2) capable of converting the wavelength (λ.sub.Rx) extracted from the first optical signal by the insertion-extraction module into an outgoing electric signal (Data Rx).

An optical network management device (100) which assigns a path from a transmitting node to a receiving node in an optical network system including a multi-core optical fiber, includes at least one processor, the processor being configured to carry out: a core extraction process of extracting a core constituting the path; and a path assignment process of selecting, in accordance with an attribute of the path, a wavelength to which the path is to be assigned, the multi-core optical fiber having an optical amplifier attached thereto, the optical amplifier having an amplification gain that is larger in a first wavelength region than in a second wavelength region, the path assignment process including preferentially assigning, to the first wavelength region, the path having a specific attribute.

In one or more embodiments, one or more systems of a physical optical network that may implement and/or manage a virtual optical network (VON) that interconnects multiple data centers. Virtual nodes based the multiple data centers to be interconnected may be determined, and each of the virtual nodes may be mapped to at least two physical nodes of the physical optical network. Virtual links for pairs of the virtual nodes may be determined, and each virtual link may be mapped to at least one optical network connection of the physical optical network. At least one of a physical node impairment and an optical network connection impairment that is associated with a first physical node implementing a first virtual node may be detected, and the first virtual node may be implemented via a second physical node.

An optical communication system with a hierarchical branch configuration. The system includes first and second cable landing stations coupled to a trunk path in an optical cable. At least one hub-node is coupled to the trunk path through an associated hub-node branching unit. Sub-nodes are coupled the hub-nodes through associated sub-node branching units and sub-node paths in the optical cable. Sub-node signals may be communicated between the sub-nodes and the hub-nodes without being provided on the trunk path.