Patent ID: 7715719

Claim:
A method for transmitting traffic in a plurality of passive optical networks (PONs), comprising: transmitting traffic at a first wavelength, at a second wavelength and at a third wavelength from an optical line terminal (OLT); combining the traffic in the first wavelength and the traffic in the second wavelength; splitting the combined traffic into a plurality of copies; forwarding a first copy to a first wavelength router at a first distribution node and forwarding a second copy to a second wavelength router at a second distribution node, wherein the first wavelength router is coupled to a first set of optical network units (ONUs) and the second wavelength router is coupled to a second set of ONUs; routing the first copy such that only a subset of one or more ONUs in the first set of ONUs receives the traffic in the first wavelength and only a subset of one or more ONUs in the first set of ONUs receives the traffic in the second wavelength; routing the second copy such that only a subset of one or more ONUs in the second set of ONUs receives the traffic in the first wavelength and only a subset of one or more ONUs in the second set of ONUs receives the traffic in the second wavelength; and forwarding the traffic in the third wavelength to the first and second distribution nodes; forwarding the traffic in the third wavelength to each ONU in the first and second sets of ONUs.