A method of managing an optical communications network comprising a plurality of nodes interconnected by optical sections. The method comprises: identifying one or more pairs of adjacent DL-equipped nodes at which dummy light (DL) hardware is deployed, respective dummy light (DL) hardware being deployed at fewer than the plurality of the nodes of the optical communications network, the respective DL hardware deployed at a particular node configured to supply dummy light to each optical section extending from the particular node, and defining a respective single-section DL path between each identified pair of adjacent DL-equipped nodes; identifying one or more pairs of non-adjacent DL-equipped nodes at which DL hardware is deployed, and defining a respective multi-section DL path between each identified pair of non-adjacent DL-equipped nodes; and causing the deployed DL hardware to supply DL light to each of the single- and the multi-section DL paths.

A network capable of 1:n communication in an optical wireless mesh network is provided. An optical wireless communication network communication system A1 comprises an optical wireless communication network communication system A1 comprising: an optical transmitter Ti and an optical receiver Ri, and an optical fiber cable or a coaxial cable for transmitting a signal received by the optical receiver Ri to the optical transmitter Ti at each node, wherein the n+1 node Ni is connected by a network, the optical wireless communication transceiver Si at each node Ni is capable of transmitting simultaneously to all the optical wireless communication transceivers Sj of the other n nodes Nj when its own node Ni and all of the other n nodes Nj satisfy a predetermined condition, and can be received simultaneously from all the optical wireless communication transceivers Sj of the other n nodes Nj.

Provided are: a photon detection light-receiving device with which it is possible to avoid malfunctions caused by the application of high voltages, and to shorten the delays in communication time in mesh-type network communication; and a communication apparatus equipped with the photon detection light-receiving device. The photon detection light-receiving device has a photon detection APD, a quenching resistor and a capacitor, with one end of the quenching resistor and one end of the capacitor being connected to one terminal of the photon detection APD. The optical wireless communication apparatus comprises: a housing; a photon detection light-receiving device that generates an electrical signal from received light; a receiving unit that generates a reception data signal using an electrical signal from the photon detection light-receiving device; a transmission unit that generates an electrical signal using a transmission data signal; a light emitting device into which the electrical signal from the transmission unit is input and generates transmission light; and an optical wireless communication controller that generates transmission data or reception data corresponding to the protocol of an external apparatus.

An optical network includes an arrangement of optical nodes. An optical node of the arrangement, and corresponding method, perform optical connectivity discovery and negotiation-less optical fiber continuity verification in the optical network. An overall topology of optical connectivity provisioned for the arrangement is discovered by the optical node based on messages received from a management network communicatively coupling the optical nodes to each other. The optical node synchronizes, temporally and sequentially, with the other optical nodes based on the messages received, assigns fiber of the overall topology, based on a verification sequencing method, to verification slots of a verification sequence, and verifies continuity of fiber according to the verification slots of the verification sequence. The discovery, synchronization, and assignment operations enable the optical node and peer node to perform the optical fiber continuity verification in a symmetric, decentralized, and negotiation-less manner.

The disclosed apparatuses and methods are directed to embedding of virtual links in an optical network. The method comprises: receiving an adaptation request for a virtual link within a virtual network embedded on an optical substrate network; generating a plurality of candidate embeddings based on a topology of the substrate network and a current embedding of the virtual link, each candidate embedding satisfying the adaptation request; determining a total cost of each candidate embedding based on a disruption cost of the candidate embedding; and selecting, as a new embedding, a candidate embedding from the plurality of candidate embeddings in accordance with the determined total cost of the selected candidate embedding.

Disclosed is a power optical transmission route and spectrum allocation method based on an elastic optical network, including: determining a set of alternative routes among nodes of a power communication network according to power communication topology; coloring the routes for classification, determining a total number of colors allocated, and determining the coloring of the set of alternative routes according to a hop count of route nodes and the total number of colors of spectrums; proportionally classifying the spectrums into blocks according to the total number of colors allocated and the number of route classes allocated to each color; selecting an optimal solution from the set of alternative routes by comprehensively considering a switching hop count and a network-wide risk balance value, to determine a route to execute service allocation; and determining positions of spectrum blocks according to the route selected and the allocated colors, to complete spectrum allocation.

An example system includes a first network device having first circuitry. The first network device is configured to perform operations including receiving data to be transmitted to a second network device over an optical communications network, and transmitting first information and second information to the second device. The first information is indicative of the data, and is transmitted using a first communications link of the optical communications network and using a first subset of optical subcarriers. The second information is indicative of the data, and is transmitted using a second communications link of the optical communications network and using a second subset of optical subcarriers. The first subset of optical subcarriers is different from the second subset of optical subcarriers.

An example system includes a first network device having first circuitry. The first network device is configured to perform operations including receiving data to be transmitted to a second network device over an optical communications network, and transmitting first information and second information to the second device. The first information is indicative of the data, and is transmitted using a first communications link of the optical communications network and using a first subset of optical subcarriers. The second information is indicative of the data, and is transmitted using a second communications link of the optical communications network and using a second subset of optical subcarriers. The first subset of optical subcarriers is different from the second subset of optical subcarriers.

An example system includes a first network device having first circuitry. The first network device is configured to perform operations including receiving data to be transmitted to a second network device over an optical communications network, and transmitting first information and second information to the second device. The first information is indicative of the data, and is transmitted using a first communications link of the optical communications network and using a first subset of optical subcarriers. The second information is indicative of the data, and is transmitted using a second communications link of the optical communications network and using a second subset of optical subcarriers. The first subset of optical subcarriers is different from the second subset of optical subcarriers.

An example system includes a first network device having first circuitry. The first network device is configured to perform operations including receiving data to be transmitted to a second network device over an optical communications network, and transmitting first information and second information to the second device. The first information is indicative of the data, and is transmitted using a first communications link of the optical communications network and using a first subset of optical subcarriers. The second information is indicative of the data, and is transmitted using a second communications link of the optical communications network and using a second subset of optical subcarriers. The first subset of optical subcarriers is different from the second subset of optical subcarriers.