Patent ID: 7079723

Claim:
An optical wavelength cross connect for receiving a plurality of input optical signals each having a plurality of spectral bands and transmitting a plurality of output optical signals each having one or more of the spectral bands, the optical wavelength cross connect comprising: a first plurality of wavelength routing elements, each such wavelength routing element adapted for selectively routing subsets of spectral bands between a first optical signal and different ones of a plurality of second optical signals according to a configurable state of such wavelength routing element, wherein each of the first plurality of wavelength routing elements is disposed to receive at least one optical signal corresponding to one of the input optical signals, wherein: a mapping of the spectral bands comprised by the plurality of input optical signals to the plurality of output optical signals is determined by the states of the first plurality of wavelength routing elements; at least one of the first plurality of wavelength routing elements is comprised by a protection fabric and the remainder of the first plurality of wavelength routing elements are comprised by a working fabric; and the optical wavelength cross connect further comprises a plurality of working optical switches each configured to transmit a respective one of the output optical signals either as a working signal received from the working fabric or a protection signal received from the protection fabric.