Routing device for all optical networks

An optical routing device according to any preceding claim, in which the second optical switch array comprises a number of optical switch devices, each of which is dedicated to route traffic on a respective wavelength.

An optical routing device according to any preceding claim, in which the second optical switch array comprises a number K of N×N optical switch devices, each of which is dedicated to route traffic on a respective wavelength, where K is the number of different wavelengths supported by the optical routing device and N is the number of fibre pairs supported by the optical routing device.

An optical routing device according to any preceding claim, in which the optical routing stage comprises a plurality of wavelength planes over which the first optical switch array and the second optical switch array are distributed.

An optical routing device according to any preceding claim, comprising a drop traffic path and a through traffic path, wherein the drop traffic path includes a transponder unit that is selectively reconfigurable to couple optical signals to a through traffic path thereby to provide a signal regeneration path.

An optical routing device according to any preceding claim, comprising a fibre select unit coupled to the optical input stage for selecting traffic to be coupled to a drop path.

An optical cross-connect for use in a wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) communications system, comprising an optical routing device according to any preceding claim.

An optical routing device for wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) optical signals, comprising an optical switch matrix having a first optical switch array and a second optical switch array, the first optical switch array being adapted to couple optical signals to the second optical switch array on the basis of the wavelength of respective optical signals, wherein the second optical switch array comprises a number of optical switch devices, each of which is dedicated to route traffic on a respective wavelength.

An optical add/drop multiplexer (OADM) device for wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) optical signals, comprises a drop traffic path and a through traffic path, wherein the drop traffic path comprises a transponder unit that is selectively reconfigurable to couple optical signals to the through traffic path, thereby to provide a signal regeneration path for optical signals.

A transponder unit comprising a first optical interface having an optical receiver and an optical transmitter, a second optical interface having an optical receiver and an optical transmitter, and a control device for routing signals between the first optical interface and the second optical interface, and between the optical transmitter and the optical receiver within at least one of the first and second optical interfaces.