Patent ID: 6956868

Claim:
A method for transmitting data over an optical network, comprising the steps of: transmitting a first protocol data unit (PDU) to an ingress labeled optical burst switching (LOBS) node, said ingress LOBS node having a Burst Assembly unit and a control packet processing unit, and is connected to at least one other LOBS node, passing said first PDU, including its label, if any, to said Burst Assembly unit, said first PDU containing addressing information identifying an egress LOBS node, optionally passing at least one additional PDU going to the same egress LOBS node as the first PDU to said Burst Assembly unit, continuing to pass additional PDUs going to the same egress LOBS node as prior PDUs to said Burst Assembly unit until a pre-set threshold is met, said Burst Assembly unit assembling an optical burst from the PDUs passed to it, said control packet processing unit of the ingress LOBS node constructing a labeled optical burst switching control packet, said control packet containing at least addressing information, and the initial delay of the optical burst with respect to the control packet, and, but not limited to, optionally containing class of service and quality of service parameters, sending the labeled optical burst switching control packet on a designated control wavelength to a second LOBS node, said second LOBS node either being a node intermediate to the egress LOBS node or the egress LOBS node, processing the labeled optical burst switching control packet at said node intermediate to the egress LOBS node in order to set up a path using a data wavelength from the ingress LOBS node to the egress LOBS node, or at the egress node in order to drop the burst at the burst dis-assembly unit, sending the optical data burst to the egress node along the pre-set path on a data wavelength in an optical burst switched mode without converting the optical data burst to an electrical signal at intermediate LOBS nodes, and without requiring burst delay devices such as FDLs and without requiring wavelength conversion devices, the egress LOBS node receiving the optical data burst, said egress node having a burst dis-assembly unit, passing the optical data burst to said burst dis-assembly unit, and the burst dis-assembly unit converting the optical data burst to PDUs.