Patent ID: 8565596

Claim:
An apparatus for supporting designing of an optical network including a plurality of nodes and a plurality of links which connect the plurality of nodes, comprising: a storage which stores information indicating distances of the plurality of links and information indicating amounts of chromatic dispersion in the plurality of links; and a path selection unit which selects a path for use in transmission of an optical signal, from among a plurality of paths each extending from a start node to a destination node, by reference to said storage; wherein said path selection unit selects said path on the basis of deviations of amounts of chromatic dispersion accumulated by transmission to respective nodes on each of the plurality of paths, from reference amounts at the respective nodes on said each of the plurality of paths, and the reference amounts at the respective nodes on said each of the plurality of paths are determined according to distances from the start node to the respective nodes on said each of the plurality of paths.