Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, a system adapted for obtaining data from electromagnetic waves propagating in a transmission medium, and transmitting a plurality of wireless optical signals including the data responsive to determining that weather conditions are favorable for transmitting wireless optical signals, each wireless optical signal being directed to a different one of a plurality of communication devices. Other embodiments are disclosed.

The telecommunications network node linking a metropolitan area network, including at least one optical link connecting the nodes, with at least one access network, includes an electronic card that enables the aggregation of traffic from multiple access networks, a transmitter capable of receiving an electrical signal from the electronic card and of transmitting an optical packet to the metropolitan area network, a circulator capable of extracting a stream of multiplexed optical packets from the optical link and of inserting a stream of multiplexed optical packets into the optical link, and a reflective switching matrix receiving a stream of multiplexed optical packets from among which it selects and detects those intended for the access network. The reflective switching matrix includes a POADM optical packet add/drop multiplexer that receives multiplexed optical packets and transmits demultiplexed optical packets, and at least one RSOA reflective semiconductor optical amplifier capable of receiving a demultiplexed optical packet, which includes three sections.

A system, method, and computer program product for a flashless optical network unit (ONU) in a Passive Optical Network (PON) are provided herein. The method includes the steps of synchronizing on a downstream signal of an optical line terminal (OLT), receiving a first software from the OLT for its operation on a reserved downstream channel of the OLT, and storing the received first software in a volatile memory. The ONU does not pre-store the first software in a non-volatile memory.

A computer architecture has a global optical waveguide, a buffer having memory space having a memory hierarchy above main memory for temporary data storage. A transmitter transmits a first optical signal with a first plurality of optical wavelengths on the global optical waveguide, and a second optical signal with a second plurality of optical wavelengths on the global optical waveguide. A receiver receives a second optical signal with a third plurality of optical wavelengths from the global optical waveguide. One or more local optical waveguide(s) are coupled to the global optical waveguide to receive all of the first plurality of optical wavelengths and a unique wavelength of the second plurality of optical wavelengths and transmit a unique wavelength of the third plurality of optical wavelengths. A plurality of chiplets are coupled to one of one or more local optical waveguides, each of the plurality of chiplets have a plurality of processing elements each receiving one of the first plurality of optical wavelengths and one of the second plurality of optical wavelengths from the local optical waveguide and transmitting one of the third plurality of optical wavelengths to local optical waveguide.

A method for a scalable Reconfigurable Optical-Add Drop Multiplexer (ROADM) includes determining a plurality of channels at a ROADM node in an optical network will ingress and egress at another ROADM node in the optical network, such that the plurality of channels are able to share a same physical routing in the optical network; interfacing the plurality of channels at a degree in the ROADM node, such that the plurality of channels are connected to the another ROADM node in the optical network; adding and dropping the plurality of channels at the ROADM node with corresponding modems; and pre-combining the plurality of channels onto a common port between the degree and the corresponding modems, such that the plurality of channels connect to the degree together in a single connection. An add/channel count of the ROADM node is higher with the pre-combining.

An optical communication device includes: a first optical switch that is connected to a plurality of optical transmission lines and outputs an optical signal input from any of the optical transmission lines to another optical transmission line; a second optical switch that is connected to a plurality of optical transmission lines and outputs an optical signal input from any of the optical transmission lines to another optical transmission line; and a multicast transfer unit configured to perform multicast transfer of an optical signal transmitted from a first device connected to the first optical switch to one or more second devices connected to the second optical switch.