Patent ID: 8081877

Claim:
A method of determining an optical distance between two nodes in an optical network, the method comprising: transmitting a first timing signal from a first node of the optical network to a second node of the optical network via an optical supervisory channel; transmitting a second timing signal from the second node to the first node via the optical supervisory channel; measuring a time interval between when the first timing signal is transmitted from the first node and the second time signal is received by the first node; calculating the optical distance between the first and second nodes based on the time interval; calculating the magnitude of chromatic dispersion produced in a wavelength channel of the optical network when the wavelength channel is transmitted from the first node to the second node; providing the magnitude of chromatic dispersion produced in the wavelength channel to a tunable dispersion compensation unit; and compensating for the chromatic dispersion produced in the wavelength channel using the tunable dispersion compensation unit.