Patent ID: 7483636

Claim:
A node for an optical network, comprising: at least one transport element operable to be coupled to the optical network, the transport element comprising an add/drop element comprising: a rejection filter operable to split an incoming signal that comprises traffic in a plurality of sub-bands into a first signal and a second signal, the first signal comprising the traffic in a first sub-band of traffic channels and the second signal comprising the traffic in the remaining sub-bands of traffic channels of the incoming signal; a bypass element operable to: receive the traffic in the first sub-band from the rejection filter; reject the traffic in a first portion of the first sub-band; and forward the traffic in a second portion of the first sub-band; an add element operable to: receive the second signal from the rejection filter without the second signal passing through the bypass element; receive the traffic in the second portion of the first sub-band from the bypass element; and combine the traffic in the second signal with the traffic in the second portion of the first sub-band for transport on the network; and a drop coupler operable to: drop a first copy of the incoming signal for communication of at least a portion thereof to one or more clients of the node; and forward a second copy of the incoming signal to the rejection filter.