Patent ID: 8111995

Claim:
A system for dynamically adding/dropping wavelengths in a reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer transport network having a plurality of optical transponders comprising: a plurality of optical fan-out devices, each arranged to receive an input signal from a network degree and coupled to a plurality of optical fan-in devices, each optical fan-in device arranged to output a signal to a network degree, the optical fan-out devices comprising a plurality of wavelength selective switches and the optical fan-in devices comprising a plurality of wavelength selective switches, the optical fan-out devices and optical fan-in devices being connected so as to enable signals input from each of a plurality of network degrees to be switched to another network degree of the plurality of network degrees; a plurality of M×N wavelength selective switches for locally dropping selected wavelengths, each M×N wavelength selective switch for locally dropping selected wavelengths having M inputs connected to M network degrees; a plurality of M×N wavelength selective switches for locally adding selected wavelengths, each M×N wavelength selective switch for locally adding selected wavelengths having M outputs connected to M network degrees; and an optical coupler for adding an additional wavelength selective switch to each network degree.