Patent ID: 8891965

Claim:
An optical network element comprising: optical modules each having multiple fibres; at least one fibre shuffle interconnector having ports to which said optical modules are connected; and a configuration unit which performs an automatic configuration of said optical network element by controlling the optical modules connected to said fibre shuffle interconnector to transmit a fibre identifier associated with a fibre of the respective optical module to the respective port of said fibre shuffle interconnector to which said optical module is connected, wherein said fibre shuffle interconnector forwards the received fibre identifier via another port of said fibre shuffle interconnector to another optical module of said optical network element which detects said forwarded fibre identifier being monitored by said configuration unit to generate a connectivity matrix indicating the connection of said optical modules to said fibre shuffle interconnector on the basis of the detected fibre identifiers, wherein said optical modules comprise a fan-out-module having an interface for connecting the fibres of said fan-out-module to a port of said fibre shuffle interconnector via one or more multifibre cables and an inline interface for connecting the fan-out-module to an optical network interface of a line switch.