Patent ID: 9699530
Date: 2017-07-04
CPC Classifications: H04B,H04J,H04L,H04Q

Claim:
1. A method of routing a multicast frame in an optical network having a plurality of communicably interconnected optical nodes including a multicast master node and a plurality of slave nodes, the method comprising the steps of: receiving, at a first slave node which is one of the plurality of slave nodes in the optical network, a multicast frame transmitted as a first optical signal over the optical network from the multicast master node; converting, at an optical to electrical converter associated with the first slave node, the received first optical signal to an electrical signal corresponding to the received multicast frame; receiving, at a first circuit switch input of a circuit switch associated with the first slave node, the electrical signal from the optical to electrical converter in unmodified form, the circuit switch further having a second circuit switch input and first and second circuit switch outputs, the circuit switch being connected to a packet switch associated with the first slave node, the packet switch having a packet switch input and a packet switch output, the second circuit switch input being coupled to the packet switch output and the second circuit switch output being coupled to the packet switch input; forwarding the electrical signal, with low latency, directly through the circuit switch to the first circuit switch output so as to bypass the packet switch; receiving, at an input of an electrical to optical converter associated with the first slave node, the electrical signal from the first circuit switch output; converting, at the electrical to optical converter, the electrical signal to a second optical signal corresponding to the received multicast frame; transmitting the received multicast frame from a first optical output of the first slave node as the second optical signal downstream on the optical network for receipt by another optical node in the optical network; and forwarding the received multicast frame to an external computerized device coupled to the first slave node in the event that the external computerized device is a multicast subscriber, wherein the received multicast frame is forwarded to the external computerized device using one of: a path from the circuit switch through the packet switch to the external computerized device, and a path directly from the circuit switch to the external computerized device so as to bypass the packet switch.