To enable the transmission and reception of a super-channel optical signal to continue maintaining the possible transmission capacity without providing a redundant configuration in advance even though a failure occurs in a subcarrier, an optical transmitter 10 of the present invention includes a splitting means 20 for splitting an inputted client signal so as to make frequency efficiency in optical modulation means optimized; optical modulation means 31 to 3N for modulating one of subcarriers having mutually different wavelengths with the client signal output; a multiplexing means 40 for multiplexing the modulated signals and outputting a super-channel optical signal; and a control means 50, in a state where a failure occurs in one of the subcarriers, for making a split client signal output to modulation means corresponding to a subcarrier having no failure and applying a modulation method with a higher frequency efficiency to at least one of the modulation means.

A method of statistical multiplexing with one of Layer 0 Flexible Grid optical spectrum and Layer 1 Time Division Multiplexed (TDM) bandwidth in a multi-layer network includes obtaining a sampling of bandwidth usage over time on ports and links in the multi-layer network for one of Layer 0 and Layer 1 traffic using a plurality of statistical parameters, wherein the plurality of statistical parameters are defined for the one of Layer 0 and Layer 1 traffic; monitoring the plurality of statistical parameters; and triggering based on the monitoring one of i) adjustments to the one of Layer 0 and Layer 1 traffic and ii) adjustments to routing parameters on the links for new traffic, wherein the triggering is one of through a control plane and a Software Defined Networking (SDN) controller.

A wavelength division multiplexing, WDM, network comprising an apparatus adapted to manage a frequency spectrum in the wavelength division multiplexing, WDM, network, the apparatus comprising an adjustment unit adapted to adjust a frequency offset between carriers for each individual carrier depending on performance characteristics of the individual carriers.

Apparatus and methods are provided for application layer optimization in a modern data network. The optimization incorporates variable rate transmission across one or more optical data channels. Data throughput is maximized by enabling quality of service profiles on a per transmission channel basis. According to one aspect, a system is provided in which the application layer is aware of and controls the underlying transmission rate and quality of the transmission. This enables the system to fully utilize the transmission capacity of the channel. The application layer may map different applications to different transmission classes of service. The services can be classified based on data throughput rate, guaranteed error rates, latency and cost, among other criteria. This provides flexibility to the application layer to map some loss tolerant applications to a lower cost (per bit) transmission class.

A method for virtualizing an optical network, comprising: abstracting optical resource information corresponding to resources within the optical network, constructing a plurality of candidate paths for one or more optical reachability graph (ORG) node pairs, determining whether the candidate paths are optical reachable paths, and creating an ORG link between each ORG node pair when at least one optical reachable path exists for the ORG node pair, wherein linking the ORG node pairs creates an ORG. In another embodiment, a computer program product comprising executable instructions when executed by a processor causes a node to perform the following: determine an optical network's optical-electrical-optical (OEO) conversion capability, partition a plurality of service sites into one or more electrical reachability graph (ERG) nodes, determine a grooming capability for each ERG node, and construct a plurality of electrical-layer reach paths between the ERG nodes to form an ERG.

In one embodiment, a method for passive optical network (PON) communication includes broadcasting, by an optical line terminal (OLT), a first message including a first start time of a first quiet window and a first allocation identification number (Alloc-ID), where the first Alloc-ID indicates a first supported upstream line rate associated with the first quiet window. The method also includes receiving, by the OLT from a first optical network unit (ONU) during the first quiet window, a first serial number response, wherein a first transmitting upstream line rate of the first ONU is equal to the first supported upstream line rate.

Provided are a method for processing an OS. The method includes: an OS sending node inserts OCh information into an overhead of an OMS of an OS; and/or, the OS sending node inserts the OCh information and optical carrier information into an OCh overhead of the OS, wherein the OCh information includes an identifier of the OCh, an NCF of an effective frequency slot of a media channel and a slot width of the effective frequency slot of the media channel, and a frequency slice granularity, and the optical carrier information includes: the number of optical carriers in the media channel, bit rates of the optical carriers in the media channel, modulation formats of the optical carriers in the media channel, NCFs of the optical carriers in the media channel, slot widths of the optical carriers in the media channel and a multiplexing method for the optical carriers.

A method and apparatus for performing path protection for rate-adaptive optics is provided. As part of the method, an aggregate input bit stream is received. The aggregate input bit stream is then transmitted using a rate-adaptive optical transceiver when transmitting on a first optical path. When the first optical path has a fault, the aggregate input bit stream is then transmitted on a second optical path using the rate-adaptive optical transceiver and a fixed-rate optical transceiver.

A method may include transmitting, by an optical device, a first set of channels using a first baud rate. The first set of channels may be attenuated during transmission by a filter associated with a wavelength selective switch. Transmitting, by the optical device, a second set of channels using a second baud rate. The second set of channels may be attenuated during transmission by the filter associated with the wavelength selective switch. The first set of channels and the second set of channels may be included in a super-channel. The first baud rate may be selected based on a first signal quality factor associated with attenuation by the filter associated with the wavelength selective switch. The second baud rate may be selected based on a second signal quality factor associated with attenuation by the filter associated with the wavelength selective switch.

In one embodiment, a method for passive optical network (PON) communication includes broadcasting, by an optical line terminal (OLT), a first message including a first start time of a first quiet window and a first allocation identification number (Alloc-ID), where the first Alloc-ID indicates a first supported upstream line rate associated with the first quiet window. The method also includes receiving, by the OLT from a first optical network unit (ONU) during the first quiet window, a first serial number response, wherein a first transmitting upstream line rate of the first ONU is equal to the first supported upstream line rate.