Patent · US Expired

WDM optical communications networks and methods for provisioning

US6304349A · kind A · utility

17Cited by
3References
8Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJun 30, 1998
Grant dateOct 16, 2001
Priority date
Expiry dateJun 30, 2018

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04Q2011/0086
  • WIPO fieldTelecommunications
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

Methods for provisioning optical communications networks employing wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) technology provide for routing and wave-length assignment of a set of connection requests. Avoiding many of the pitfalls of exactly optimum solutions, the present heuristic methods provide much shorter execution times while providing near-optimum performance. Adaptations of the basic solutions provide design of restorable networks capable of handling a specified set of failures. This approach advantageously is based on considering all failures simultaneously, and performs better than solutions in which independent designs are developed for each failure. Networks designed using these methods store configuration information for primary network configurations and for one or more restoration networks. Upon startup or upon network failures, predetermined configuration directions are applied to wavelength selective cross-connects (WSXC) at each network node to establish (or reestablish) desired network node interconnections.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.