Patent ID: 7715711

Claim:
A node included in one or more light-trails in a mesh network, each light-trail enabling a plurality of nodes included in the light-trail to share the use of an optical wavelength to transmit traffic between the nodes included in the light-trail, the node comprising: a plurality of wavelength selective switch (WSS) assemblies each configured to receive traffic in one or more light-trails via an associated input port of the node; and a plurality of light-trail access units (LAUs), each LAU associated with a WSS assembly, where: each WSS assembly comprises four WSSs coupled together to form the WSS assembly, two input ports, and more than two output ports, where each light trail is associated with an output port, the associated output port corresponding to the next node in the particular light-trail; each WSS assembly is configured to send traffic in one or more of the light-trails via one of the output ports to the associated LAU; each LAU is configured to: receive traffic in one or more of the light-trails from the associated WSS assembly; demultiplex the received traffic into different wavelengths; drop traffic in one or more of the wavelengths of the received traffic; pass through traffic in one or more of the wavelengths of the received traffic; add traffic to one or more of the wavelengths of the received traffic; multiplex the added traffic with the passed-through traffic; and forward the multiplexed traffic to the associated WSS assembly; and each WSS assembly is further configured to receive the traffic from the associated LAU at the second input port and send the traffic in a particular light-trail through the output port that corresponds to the next node in the particular light-trail.