Patent ID: 7010227

Claim:
A communication system comprising: a plurality of nodes, each node including an optical switch to controllably route signals from a plurality of in-ports of the optical switch into a plurality of out-ports of the optical switch; a plurality of point-to-point links between each node and another of the plurality of nodes that interconnect the plurality of nodes into a network, each point-to-point link including a free space optical channel, a first free space optical channel coupling to a first node through a receive path and through a transmit path, the receive path coupling to a respective in-port of the optical switch of the first node, the transmit path coupling to a respective out-port of the optical switch of the first node; and at least one communication hub comprising: a plurality of neighborhood links to corresponding users, where each link carries an optical signal having a wavelength assigned to a corresponding user; an optical switch coupled to the plurality of neighborhood links to route the optical signals to the corresponding users; and a trunk coupled between the optical switch in the communication hub and a free space optical channel link to at least one node of the network.