Patent ID: 7843838
Filing Date: 2010-11-30
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for tracing a communication route through an optical communication network coupling a first Internet protocol (IP) router with a second IP router, the method comprising: at a first time, propagating an unconditionally propagated burst data error from the first IP router to the second IP router over the optical communication network to cause a plurality of intermediate optical transceivers of the optical communication network to report first information concerning the unconditionally propagated burst data error, wherein the first information indicates which of the intermediate optical transceivers detected the unconditionally propagated burst data error and times of detection of the unconditionally propagated burst data error at each of the intermediate optical transceivers; in a remote terminal, receiving the first information and processing the first information to correlate the first time to the times of detection to identify the intermediate optical transceivers that are within the communication route coupling the first IP router with the second IP router; configuring a selected subset of the intermediate optical transceivers so that a conditionally propagated alarm condition, when propagated from the first IP router toward the second IP router, causes the selected subset of the intermediate optical transceivers to report second information concerning the conditionally propagated alarm condition, wherein the second information indicates which of the intermediate optical transceivers propagated the conditionally propagated alarm condition; propagating the conditionally propagated alarm condition from the first IP router toward the second IP router; in the remote terminal, receiving the second information and processing the second information to identify a sequence of the selected subset within the intermediate optical transceivers; and repeatedly re-configuring further selected subsets of the intermediate optical transceivers, re-propagating the conditionally propagated alarm condition from the first IP router toward the second IP router, and re-processing the second information of the further selected subsets in the remote terminal until an entire sequence of the intermediate optical transceivers defining the communication route is determined.