Patent ID: 7809265

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a time-domain wavelength-interleaved optical network including a plurality of network nodes configured to passively route optical signals between a plurality of edge nodes connected thereto, each of the edge nodes being configured to receive optical communications from others of the edge nodes on an associated wavelength-channel, the number of edge nodes being larger than the number of wavelength-channels; wherein one of the edge nodes is configured to determine whether the one of the edge nodes is the final destination edge node or an intermediate edge node for a received one of the optical communications from a certain one of the network nodes based on routing data from the received one of the optical communications, the routing data supplementing a wavelength-channel of the received one of the optical communications; and wherein after the one of the edge nodes determines that the one of the edge nodes is an intermediate edge node based on the routing data, the one of the edge nodes is configured to route to the certain network node a second optical communication, which is derivable from the received one of the optical communications from the certain network node.