An undersea fiber optic cable routing architecture including a branching unit coupled to three trunk cables capable of switching individual fibers in each fiber pair within a cable to either of the other two cables. The branching unit comprises a plurality of optical switches and a controller for receiving remote command signals and configuring the optical switches in accordance with the remote command signals.

An undersea fiber optic cable routing architecture including a branching unit coupled to three trunk cables capable of switching individual fibers in each fiber pair within a cable to either of the other two cables. The branching unit comprises a plurality of optical switches and a controller for receiving remote command signals and configuring the optical switches in accordance with the remote command signals.

A passive signal transport medium, constructed as an array of spectral-temporal connectors, connects a large number of access nodes to a number of distributors to form a single-hop network of wide coverage and high throughput yet simplified control. Parameterized spectral-temporal connectors define network expansion over networks using conventional signal transport media. A network accommodating 32000 access nodes with a throughput of an Exabits/second is realizable. The distributors may be geographically distributed (the access nodes are naturally geographically distributed). The entire network structure is parameterized. Selecting the number of distributors to equal the number of access nodes, and pairing each access node with a respective distributor to form an integrated node, an expanded fully-meshed network is realized with each pair of integrated nodes having a direct path and numerous single-hop paths. Several routing schemes within the fully-meshed network are considered to enable both global control and distributed control.

A content delivery network (CDN) includes: at least one CDN origin node; and multiple CDN cache nodes connected to the at least one CDN origin node via an optical transport network (OTN). Deliveries and/or routing from the multiple CDN cache nodes to the at least one CDN origin node and/or vice versa is performed below layer 3 of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model.

The disclosure is directed to an optical telecommunications system which includes a central node and a plurality of user nodes. The central node provides the light necessary to enable communication between the user nodes. Within the central node is a multi-wavelength source, providing lights at different wavelengths, along with a wavelength selector. The wavelength selector selects one of the lights at different wavelengths from the multi-wavelength source for delivery to the user nodes such that the user nodes then modulate this light for transmission between nodes.

Methods for providing flammability protection for plastic optical fiber (POF) embedded inside avionics line replaceable units (LRUs) or other equipment used in airborne vehicles such as commercial or fighter aircrafts. A thin and flexible flammability protection tube is placed around the POF. In one proposed implementation, a very thin (100 to 250 microns in wall thickness) polyimide tube is placed outside and around the POF cable embedded inside an LRU or other equipment. The thin-walled polyimide tube does not diminish the flexibility of the POF cable.

An undersea fiber optic cable routing architecture including a branching unit coupled to three trunk cables capable of switching individual fibers in each fiber pair within a cable to either of the other two cables. The branching unit comprises a plurality of optical switches and a controller for receiving remote command signals and configuring the optical switches in accordance with the remote command signals.

An apparatus includes a tail-end optical switch configured to be coupled to a broadcast star network that couples the tail-end optical switch to a head-end optical switch by a primary bidirectional optical path and a second bidirectional optical path. The tail-end optical switch having a first optical switch and a second optical switch configured to provide active switching.

A first optical node is configured for deployment in an optical network including second optical nodes having a ring topology. The first optical node includes an optical encoder and a decoder. The optical encoder is configured to form a third optical signal for transmission into the optical network by combining a first optical signal generated by the first optical node with a second optical signal received by the first optical node from the second optical nodes. The decoder is configured to extract information from fourth optical signals received from the second optical nodes. In some cases, the first optical node includes a receive buffer configured to store information representative of the fourth optical signals received from the second optical nodes and a transmit buffer configured to store information used to generate the first optical signal.

An apparatus includes a tail-end optical switch configured to be coupled to a broadcast star network that couples the tail-end optical switch to a head-end optical switch by a primary bidirectional optical path and a second bidirectional optical path. The tail-end optical switch having a first optical switch and a second optical switch configured to provide active switching.