Proposed is a method of equalizing an optical signal that has an overall bandwidth formed on a number of adjacent spectral slots, wherein the signal comprises a set of non-overlapping subcarrier signals. A distribution of the subcarrier signals onto the slots is such, that at least one slot is occupied by more than one subcarrier signal. The signal is received and amplified. Respective power levels are measured for the subcarrier signals. Distribution data is provided, which indicates the distribution of the subcarrier signals onto the spectral slots. Power level data is provided, which indicates for the spectral slots respective desired power levels. For the spectral slots respective attenuation values are derived, using the measured power levels, the distribution data and the power level data. Finally, the optical transmission signal is attenuated within the spectral slots individually, using the derived attenuation values.

Systems and methods to control optical signals in a spectrally overlapped, flexible grid spectrum system include receiving measured power within a control bandwidth for an optical signal, wherein the control bandwidth is less than a spectral occupancy of the optical signal and equal to or greater than a resolution bandwidth of a measurement device configured to measure the measured power; and controlling the optical signal based on the measured power and a target power within the control bandwidth. The optical signals can include Nyquist spaced or super Nyquist spaced signals in a media-channel.

A bidirectional WDM optical communications link has WDM signals sent in opposite directions along a shared optical path and using at least one common wavelength. An optical amplifier (20, 21, 22, 70, A.sub.1.sup.D, A.sub.2.sup.U, A.sub.2.sup.D) optically amplifies (144) a first WDM signal separately from a second WDM signal in the other direction. This separated optical amplification is controlled (134) according to indications of transmission quality at the common wavelength, to alter the relative optical powers of the first and second WDM signals to enable crosstalk at the common wavelength to be limited. Cross talk at the common wavelength can be improved by rebalancing relative amounts of cross talk in the different directions, to enable the capacity benefits of using a common wavelength for both directions to be obtained while using greater optical signal power. This is particularly useful where the optical power is asymmetric, such as in WDM PON systems.

For determining whether a configuration of an optical transmission interface of a first device has to be adjusted for transmitting optical signals to a second device via an optical band-pass filter, the second device having an optical reception interface configured to enable receiving optical signals output by said optical band-pass filter and transmitted by the first device on a carrier wavelength when said carrier wavelength is comprised in the passband of the optical band-pass filter, said carrier wavelength and/or said passband of the optical band-pass filter being a priori unknown, a monitoring device performs: monitoring an evolution of a difference level between codewords received by the second device via said optical signals and corresponding codewords transmitted by the first device; and determining whether the configuration of the optical transmission interface of the first device has to be adjusted, on the basis of said monitoring.

Consistent with the present disclosure, an optical communication system is provided in which client data is input to a first node and output from a second node, spaced from the first node, with little delay. In one example, the delay is reduced by including higher order Raman amplifiers that provide a substantially uniform gain along the length of a fiber optic link, thereby reducing the number of EDFAs that may otherwise be installed along the optical fiber link or eliminating such EDFAs entirely. In another example, FEC encoding and decoding are not employed, thereby reducing the delay even further.

A burst-mode optical amplification apparatus and method is provided. The burst-mode optical amplification apparatus includes a gain saturation signal generator configured to generate a gain saturation signal for gain stabilization based on an incoming input optical signal; a wavelength multiplexer configured to wavelength multiplex the incoming input optical signal and the gain saturation signal; and an optical amplifier configured to amplify both the wavelength-multiplexed input optical signal and the wavelength-multiplexed gain saturation signal. The apparatus may further include a time delay module configured to synchronize the input optical signal and the gain saturation signal by delaying the transmission time of the input optical signal, taking into consideration the processing time needed by the gain saturation signal generator to generate the gain saturation signal.

A device includes a threshold setting unit that sets a threshold for an input optical power monitor to detect the input optical power to the optical transmission line of an active system; a threshold deciding unit that decides whether the input optical power to the optical transmission line of the active system detected by the input optical power monitor is not greater than the threshold set by the threshold setting unit or not; and an attenuation controller that carries out, when the threshold deciding unit decides that the input optical power is not greater than the threshold, system switching by controlling first variable optical attenuators so as to gradually reduce attenuation of the signal light rays input from the optical transmission line of one backup system, and to gradually increase attenuation of the signal light rays input from the optical transmission line of the active system.

The invention refers a method and an arrangement for channel set up in an optical network. An optical signal path is configured for a certain optical channel signal (OC1) of a WDM-signal. This channel signal (OC1) is on-off-modulated by a modulation test signal (MT1) having a predetermined lower frequency and is generating a channel test signal (OT1). This channel test signal (OT1) is combined with other optical channels (OC2-OCn) to the WDM-signal (WS) and transmitted via said path. At a start node (1) or a downstream node (3, 5) a measurement signal (EMI, EM3) is derived from the complete WDM-signal (WS) without wavelength de-multiplexing. The measurement signal (EMI, EM3) is compared with a correlation signal (MC1) and an obtained power level (PC1) is used to adjust the channel power (PC1, PC2, PC3) to achieve predetermined target power values (PC1-PC4) at different power monitoring points (19, 40, 41, 58). The adjustment step is repeated for all downstream nodes (3, 5) and all further channel signals (OC2-OCn).

There is proved an optical transmission system including: a transmitter configured to transmit an optical signal modulated with a discrete multi-tone (DMT) drive signal; a filter capable of changing a wavelength of the optical signal input from the transmitter; a monitor configured to monitor a power of the optical signal passed through the filter; and at least one processor configured to: set a center wavelength of the filter, shift the center wavelength, detect a change in the power monitored by the monitor, identify a carrier component of the optical signal based on the change in the power, and control a relative relationship between a transmission characteristic of the filter and a wavelength of the carrier component so that the carrier component is included in the optical signal and one of an upper sideband and a lower sideband of the optical signal is at least partially removed by the filter.

An optical transmission system includes: a reception apparatus configured to receive signal light separated from wavelength division multiplexing light; and a management apparatus configured to manage a plurality of optical transmission apparatuses that transmit the wavelength division multiplexing light, wherein the reception apparatus further comprises: an amplification section configured to amplify each power of electric signals for demodulating the signal light within a predetermined tolerance level, the electric signals being converted from mixed light of local light and the signal light input into the reception apparatus; an adjustment section configured to adjust power of the signal light input into the reception apparatus or power of the local light; and a controller configured to control the adjustment section based on an adjustment amount notified by the management apparatus, the management apparatus includes a computer.