Patent ID: 11870496
Assignee: INFINERA CORPORATION
Field: Telecommunications (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 0:
1. A system comprising:
a first network device comprising:
first circuitry, wherein the first network device is configured to perform operations comprising:
receiving data to be transmitted to a second network device over an optical communications network,
transmitting, to the second device, first information indicative of the data using a first communications link of the optical communications network, wherein the first information is transmitted using a first subset of optical subcarriers,
determining a fault in the first communications link, and
responsive to determining the fault in the first communications link, transmitting, to the second network device, second information indicative of the data using a second communications link of the optical communications network, wherein the second information is transmitted using a second subset of optical subcarriers, and wherein the first subset of optical subcarriers is different from the second subset of optical subcarriers; and

a transmitter comprising a laser and a modulator, the modulator receiving light from the laser and modulating said light to output the first and second subsets of optical subcarriers, such that the first subset of the plurality of optical subcarriers output from the modulator carries the first information and the second subset of optical subcarriers carries the second information, and the first subset of optical subcarriers and the second subset of optical subcarriers are associated with the laser and each of the plurality of optical subcarriers do not spectrally overlap with one another.