Patent ID: 7085496

Claim:
An add/drop node for an optical network, comprising: a passive splitter to split an ingress signal from the network into a first ingress signal and a second ingress signal; a first amplified splitter stages module to passively split and amplify the first ingress signal into a plurality of drop signals, wherein the first amplified splitter stages module comprises: a plurality of optical splitter stages, the optical splitter stages each operable to passively split each of one or more optical signals provided to the stage into a plurality of optical signals, wherein the optical splitter stages comprise a plurality of branches and further comprise couplers connecting at least two of the branches to reduce an imbalance of signal power of the branches; at least one of the optical splitter stages comprising an amplification stage, the amplification stage including a plurality of gain media; and the gain media each operable to amplify a transient optical signal with pump power; a filter module operable to filter the second ingress signal to provide a filtered pass-through signal; and a second amplified splitter stages module to passively combine a plurality of add signals into a combined add signal and to combine the combined add signal with the filtered pass-through signal to create an egress signal forwardable to the network.