Patent ID: 6882798

Claim:
An optical transmission apparatus for selecting, based on a first metric representative of a criterion for decision, an optical transmission route to a desired destination on a network for thereby transmitting information to said desired destination, said apparatus comprising: a plurality of quality monitors each for monitoring quality of a signal, which carries the information and arrives on a particular optical transmission path, immediately before said signal is input; a monitor/control unit for converting first data being monitored to second data in accordance with conditions of each optical transmission path, comparing said second data selectively fed to said monitor/control unit path by path to thereby select a route, generating a second metric for said route selected, adding said second metric to the first metric of, among a plurality of optical transmission paths having a same metric value, an optical transmission path corresponding to said route selected to thereby control delivery of information, and controlling an error correcting function relating to said optical transmission path; and a route selecting circuit for selecting one of signals fed thereto in accordance with control over the error correcting function.