Patent ID: 7826743

Claim:
An optical network, comprising: an access ring coupling a plurality of gateways and operable to transmit optical signals to and from the gateways, the optical signals comprising multiple wavelengths, each wavelength operable to carry traffic; a local ring coupling one or more add/drop nodes (ADNs) and operable to transmit optical signals to and from the ADNs; and the one or more ADNs operable to add and drop traffic to and from the local ring in one or more wavelengths; a first gateway operable to: receive broadcast traffic on the access ring, the broadcast traffic transmitted in one or more wavelengths of the optical signals transmitted on the access ring; forward, on the access ring, a first copy of the broadcast traffic received on the access ring; and forward, to the local ring, a second copy of the broadcast traffic received on the access ring; and a second gateway operable to: receive local traffic originating from one or more of the ADNs on the local ring; forward the local traffic to the access ring; receive, from the local ring, broadcast traffic forwarded to the local ring by the first gateway; and terminate the broadcast traffic received from the local ring.