Patent ID: 8457490

Claim:
A method comprising: transmitting a data signal over a path of a wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) optical network via an optical channel allocated as a group of optical subcarriers; determining that a hop-to-hop route for the path has been changed or rerouted; determining that the transmission of the data signal over the rerouted path using the group of optical subcarriers is not optically feasible; determining that the transmission of the data signal over the changed or rerouted path using a subset of optical subcarriers selected from the group of optical subcarriers is optically feasible; selecting the subset of optical subcarriers such that the data signal is carried in the optical channel in active subcarriers of the subset of optical subcarriers that are separated by at least one inactive subcarrier of the group of optical subcarriers; and transmitting the data signal in the optical channel over the changed or rerouted path of the WDM network using the active optical subcarriers of the subset of optical subcarriers.