Patent ID: 7031608

Claim:
An optical packet node for receiving and transmitting optical packets, said packet node comprising: a multiwavelength band splitting device for splitting received optical packets transmitted via multiwavelength bands into at least three groups, each group comprising one multiwavelength band, a multiwavelength band combining device for combining said at least three groups of multiwavelength bands, at least two optical packet add drop multiplexers, each optical packet add drop multiplexer placed between said multiwavelength band splitting device and said multiwavelength band combining device, and each optical packet add drop multiplexer serving to add at least one individual wavelength to a respective multiwavelength band group and to drop at least one individual wavelength from a respective multiwavelength band group, and a load balancing stage connected to said at least two optical packet add drop multiplexers to provide an interconnection between at least two multiwavelength wavelength band groups, wherein said load balancing stage manages traffic levels of optical packets to prevent overload by shifting selected packets from one multiwavelength band group to another multiwavelength band group, and wherein said load balancing stage stores low priority optical packets that were dropped to transmit high priority optical packets, said stored low priority optical packets being transmitted to fill gaps between high priority optical data or being transmitted over an available wavelength in a multiwavelength band group.