Patent ID: 7702239

Claim:
An optical cross-connector, comprising: a first switching device for at least one of through-connection, branching and feeding in of optical signals in an optical network, the first switching device having granularities comprising at least one of a patch panel, wavelength group and wavelength; first connection points operatively coupling the first switching device to the optical network; a second switching device operatively coupled in a cascaded arrangement to the first switching device to allow communication of polarization multiplex signals, the second switching device including a polarization demultiplexer and a polarization multiplexer, wherein at least one of (i) a first external output of the polarization demultiplexer and (ii) a first external input of the polarization multiplexer are operatively coupled with at least one external second connection point, and the second switching device having a granularity comprising a polarization; third connection points operatively coupling the first switching device to a second switching device, a second switching device input operatively coupled to a first switching device output, and a second switching device output operatively coupled to a first switching device input; and at least one external fourth connection point operatively coupling the first switching device to at least one of a second external input and a second external output, the second external input and the second external output being separate from the optical network and the second switching device.