Patent ID: 6414765
Filing Date: 2002-07-02
Classification: H04B,H04J,H04Q

Abstract:
A protection switch in a node of a two-fiber optical channel shared protection ring, the node including a plurality of primary clients and a plurality of pre-emptible clients, each fiber in the two-fiber optical channel shared protection ring propagating at least one working wavelength channel dedicated to primary client traffic and at least one protection wavelength channel which may accommodate extra client traffic, the protection switch comprising:an optical signal monitor coupled to the two-fiber optical channel shared protection ring, the optical signal monitor being operative to detect multi-wavelength channel failures and single wavelength channel failures in the two-fiber optical channel shared protection ring; and an electrical switching circuit coupled to the optical signal monitor, the electrical switching circuit being comprised of a plurality of modular switching fabrics, each modular switching fabric of the plurality of modular switching fabrics including a ring switch mode that is responsive to at least one of the multi-wavelength channel failures, and a span switch mode that is responsive to at least one of the single wavelength channel failures.