Patent ID: 7062167

Claim:
An optical transmission system, comprising an optical communication apparatus, a communicating party of said optical communication apparatus, and a monitor device for performing monitoring of optical signals transmitted and received between said optical communication apparatus and said communicating party; wherein said optical communication apparatus comprises: an optical branching transmitting device having a single input and a first and second outputs, for branching input optical signals to be transmitted to said communicating party from the single input into first optical signals on the first output and second optical signals on the second output; a first transmit interface coupled to receive said first optical signals from said optical branching transmitting device, said first transmit interface connected only to a single optical cable for transmitting said first optical signals to said communicating party; a second transmit interface coupled to receive said second optical signals from said optical branching transmitting device and for transmitting said second optical signals to said monitor device; a receive interface coupled to receive optical signals from said communicating party and providing received optical signals; an optical branching receiving device having a single input and a first and second outputs, wherein said single input is connected to said receive interface for receiving said received optical signals and for branching said received optical signals into third and fourth optical signals respectively on the first and second outputs; additional circuitry of said optical communicating apparatus connected to receive said third optical signals from said optical branching receiving device; a third transmit interface connected to receive said fourth optical signals from said optical branching receiving device and for transmitting said fourth optical signals to said monitor device; wherein said monitor device includes a display and performs monitoring of data contents of said second and fourth optical signals.