Patent ID: 11901950
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:
monitoring for incoming optical signals on a first communications link and a second communications link of an optical communications network, wherein each of the first communications link and the second communications link communicatively interconnects the first network device and a second network device;
modulating light output from a laser with a modulator, such that the modulator provides a plurality of optical subcarriers including a first subset of optical subcarriers and a second subset of optical subcarriers, such that the first subset of optical subcarriers carries first information and the second subset of optical subcarriers carries second information, the first and second subsets of optical subcarriers are associated with the laser and each of the plurality of optical subcarriers do not spectrally overlap with one another;
receiving, by the first network device, at least one of:
a first signal comprising the first information, which is indicative of data transmitted by the second network device using the first communications link and using the first subset of optical subcarriers, or
a second signal comprising the second information, which is indicative of the data transmitted by the second network device using the second communications link and using the second subset of optical subcarriers, wherein the first subset of optical subcarriers is different from the second subset of optical subcarriers; and

retrieving, by the first network device, the data from at least one of the first signal or the second signal.