A method for establishing an embedded optical communication channel in an optical WDM transmission system including: creating, at the central network device, a broad-band optical signal, supplying the broadband optical signal, transmitting the broadband optical signal and the plurality of second optical channel signals to an optical demultiplexer device, transmitting an optical signal consisting of a dedicated second optical channel signal and a filtered broadband optical signal; receiving the optical signal and creating a corresponding electrical receive signal and extracting the electrical signal corresponding to the filtered broadband optical signal from the electrical receive signal and detecting whether the electrical signal contains information intended for the respective first channel transceiver.

Processing a received optical signal in an optical communication network includes equalizing a received optical signal to provide an equalized signal, demodulating the equalized signal according to an m-ary modulation format to provide a demodulated signal, decoding the demodulated signal according to an inner code to provide an inner-decoded signal, and decoding the inner-decoded signal according to an outer code. Other aspects include other features such as equalizing an optical channel including storing channel characteristics for the optical channel associated with a client, loading the stored channel characteristics during a waiting period between bursts on the channel, and equalizing a received burst from the client using the loaded channel characteristics.

The application provides an optical network apparatus and an optical module. The optical network apparatus is configured to: convert, by a processing chip, the received N electrical signals from a board interface chip into a first electrical signal and a second electrical signal; and send the above two electrical signals to a first optical transmission component and a second optical transmission component, respectively; convert, by the first optical transmission component, the first electrical signal into a first optical signal; and convert, by the second optical transmission component, the second electrical signal into a second optical signal. The N to-be-sent electrical signals are combined, and only two optical transmission components are connected to the processing chip. Therefore, the processing chip does not need to be connected to four optical transmission components, fewer optical transmission components are required, and costs are reduced.

In one embodiment, a method includes receiving, by a network controller and from a first node of a network, information associated with a data stream of the network and determining, by the network controller, a segmentation for the data stream. The segmentation includes a plurality of data segments and the plurality of data segments includes a first data segment. The method further includes determining, by the network controller, a data flow path for each of the plurality of data segments and determining, by the network controller, a first wavelength to assign to the first data segment. The first wavelength is one of a plurality of wavelengths spanning between the first node and a second node of the network.

Processing a received optical signal in an optical communication network includes equalizing a received optical signal to provide an equalized signal, demodulating the equalized signal according to an m-ary modulation format to provide a demodulated signal, decoding the demodulated signal according to an inner code to provide an inner-decoded signal, and decoding the inner-decoded signal according to an outer code. Other aspects include other features such as equalizing an optical channel including storing channel characteristics for the optical channel associated with a client, loading the stored channel characteristics during a waiting period between bursts on the channel, and equalizing a received burst from the client using the loaded channel characteristics.

An optical transmission device includes a first wavelength multiplexer, a second wavelength multiplexer, a wavelength converter and a third wavelength multiplexer. The first wavelength multiplexer multiplexes optical signals in a first wavelength band to generate first wavelength multiplexed light. The second wavelength multiplexer multiplexes optical signals in the first wavelength band to generate second wavelength multiplexed light in a first polarization. The wavelength converter converts a wavelength of the second wavelength multiplexed light from the first wavelength band into a second wavelength band by a cross phase modulation among the second wavelength multiplexed light, first pump light in a second polarization and second pump light in the second polarization. The second polarization is orthogonal to the first polarization. The third wavelength multiplexer multiplexes the second wavelength multiplexed light whose wavelength has been converted by the wavelength converter and the first wavelength multiplexed light.

A method of interrogating a WDM optical communication system is provided to obtain one or more performance parameters. In accordance with the method, an optical probe wavelength is generated and possibly modulated in a prescribed manner. The probe signal is transmitted along a selected optical path through the WDM optical communication system for a duration of time that is less than a response time of network elements that impact signal quality along the selected optical path.

Infrastructure comprising a wide area network (WAN) is adapted as a transport network portion of a 5G network in which the WAN is sliced at the optical layer on a discrete wavelength basis to provide dedicated network capacity to customers such as service providers, application providers, and network operators. Optical layer slicing extends the slicing construct for a radio access network (RAN) portion of the 5G network through to the WAN to provide end-to-end 5G network slicing from user equipment (UE) accessing an air interface of the network to application servers that are instantiated in data centers in a network cloud portion of the 5G network.

A system and method for performing an in-service optical time domain reflectometry test, an in-service insertion loss test, and an in-service optical frequency domain reflectometry test using a same wavelength as the network communications for point-to-point or point-to-multipoint optical fiber networks while maintaining continuity of network communications are disclosed.

A multi-core fiber includes: a plurality of cores; and a cladding portion formed around outer peripheries of the cores. Further, the cores each have a propagation characteristic conforming to any one of a plurality of standards for optical propagation characteristics, and of the cores, cores that are closest to each other conform to standards different from each other.