Patent ID: 7421207
Filing Date: 2008-09-02
Classification: H04B

Abstract:
1. An inline optical amplifier station for an optical transport system, the inline optical amplifier station comprising: a first optical coupler/decoupler configured to decouple a first bidirectional signal and a first service channel signal from a first fiber span signal; a second optical coupler/decoupler configured to decouple a first data signal propagating in a first direction from the first bidirectional signal and to combine a second data signal propagating in a second direction with the first bidirectional signal; a third optical coupler/decoupler configured to decouple a third data signal propagating in the second direction from a second bidirectional signal and to combine a fourth data signal propagating in the first direction with the second bidirectional signal; a first optical attenuator configured to receive the first data signal from the second optical coupler/decoupler; a second optical attenuator configured to receive the third data signal from the third optical coupler/decoupler; a first optical coupler configured to combine the first and third data signals to produce a combined signal; a first optical amplifier configured to co-directionally amplify the combined signal; and a first optical decoupler configured to decouple the second and fourth data signals from the combined signal.