Patent ID: 7483637

Claim:
An optical network system comprising a first optical network and a second optical network, each network comprising at least one optical gateway node and a plurality of passive optical add/drop nodes, the system comprising: a first gateway node coupled to the first optical network and operable to: forward a first copy of a received optical signal to a multiplexer/demultiplexer unit of the first gateway node, the multiplexer/demultiplexer unit operable to multiplex the first copy into one or more constituent wavelengths and to selectively forward or terminate the traffic in each wavelength of the first copy; forward a second copy of the received optical signal to a regeneration element of the first gateway node, the second copy thus bypassing the multiplexer/demultiplexer unit; selectively forward or terminate the traffic in each wavelength of the first copy at the multiplexer/demultiplexer unit; and selectively perform one of the following on the traffic in each wavelength of the second copy at the regeneration element: terminate the traffic, forward the traffic to the second optical network, or forward the traffic on the first optical network after regenerating the traffic; and a second gateway node coupled to the second optical network and operable to: receive the traffic contained in the second copy forwarded from the first gateway node; and add the traffic contained in the second copy forwarded from the first gateway node to a ring of the second optical network.