Patent ID: 7653305

Claim:
An optical transport system architecture, comprising: a plurality of node sections, each node section including a plurality of network interface unit devices wherein each network interface unit device corresponds with a node and each network interface unit is substantially the same comprising an optical receiver, an optical transmitter, and a plurality of coupler/splitter devices each having at least one lower level port and a higher level port; wherein one of the nodes is designated as a primary central node having a higher level port of a coupler/splitter device of the corresponding network interface unit coupled back upon itself thus causing a signal received at a lower level port of the coupler/splitter device of the corresponding network interface unit to be transmitted back to each of the lower level ports of the coupler/splitter device of the corresponding network interface unit; wherein each node section includes one node designated as a primary grouper node, and a plurality of nodes designated as additional grouper nodes; a plurality of first bidirectional optical transmission paths coupled to the lower level ports of coupler/splitter devices of the corresponding network interface unit of the primary central node and also coupled to separate ones of the upper level ports of the coupler/splitter devices of the network interface units of the primary grouper nodes such that each photonic signal supplied to the lower level ports of the coupler/splitter devices corresponding to the primary grouper nodes is provided to the primary central node and is then provided back to all of the lower level ports of the coupler/splitter devices of the primary grouper nodes; and a plurality of second bidirectional optical transmission paths coupled to each of the lower level ports of coupler/splitter devices of the primary grouper nodes and also coupled to a separate ones of the upper level ports of coupler/splitter devices corresponding to the additional grouper nodes, such that photonic signals from the additional grouper nodes are provided to the primary grouper nodes and are then provided to all of the lower level ports of the coupler/splitter devices corresponding to the additional grouper nodes.