Patent ID: 7002909

Claim:
A method for protecting from the loss of data in an optical data network, comprising: receiving the data over a service optical fiber line; delaying reception of the data over a protection optical fiber line by a first delay amount with respect to the reception of the data over the service optical fiber line including storing a first amount of the data in a buffer coupled to the protection optical fiber line, the first amount of the data corresponding to at least the amount of data that is transmitted over the service optical fiber line during the first delay amount, wherein the storing includes: converting the data from an optical format to an electrical format; placing the data in the electrical format into the buffer; and converting the data in the buffer from the electrical format to the optical format for placement on the protection optical fiber line; detecting a fault condition in the service optical fiber line; and receiving the transmission of data over the protection optical fiber line in response to the detection of the fault condition, wherein the first delay amount corresponds to at least the amount of time to switch to the reception of the data over the protection optical fiber line from the reception of the data over the service optical fiber line after the detection of the fault condition.