Patent ID: 6844977

Claim:
An optical communication device, comprising: an optical communication path; and a plurality of optical filtering elements coupled to said optical communication path, each of said plurality of filtering elements having a single optical interference filter that includes a plurality of alternating high and low refractive indices and has two passbands, a first passband being configured to add/drop a plurality of optical signals corresponding to an optical payload channel, each of the optical signals being at a respective one of a plurality of wavelengths, the first passband being a approximately 1 nm wide around a first center wavelength within said plurality of wavelengths of said optical signals; a second passband of said optical interference filter being configured to add/drop a service channel at a wavelength different than the plurality of wavelengths of the optical signals, the second passband being aproximately 20 nm wide around a second center wavelength corresponding to said service channel wavelength.