Optical cross connect apparatus and method

An optical cross-connect apparatus, comprising:

• a plurality of optical inputs;
• a plurality of optical outputs;
• an optical cross-connect provided between said plurality of optical inputs and said plurality of optical outputs;
• and
• at least one optical filter provided outside of said cross-connect, said at least one optical filter filtering at least one optical channel of an optical signal flowing into at least one of said plurality of optical inputs or filtering at least one optical channel of an optical signal flowing out of at least one of said plurality of optical outputs or both;
• wherein there are no optical filters included within said optical cross-connect.

A method of optimizing a cross-connect apparatus by reducing the number of filters required for cross connecting a plurality of optical inputs and a plurality of optical outputs, the method comprising:

• providing an optical cross-connect between the plurality of optical inputs and the plurality of optical outputs;
• optically filtering at least one optical channel of an optical signal flowing into at least one of said plurality of optical inputs or at least one optical channel of an optical signal flowing out of at least one of said plurality of optical outputs or both, thereby obviating the requirement of optically filtering said at least one optical channel within said optical cross-connect;
• and
• providing a signal from said at least one optical input to at least one optical output without filtering said signal within said optical cross-connect.

An optical cross-connect apparatus, comprising:

• a plurality of optical inputs;
• a plurality of optical outputs;
• an optical cross-connect provided between said plurality of optical inputs and said plurality of optical outputs such that paths are formed between a subset of said plurality of optical inputs and a subset of said plurality of optical outputs, wherein a path is defined as a connection between a particular optical input and a particular output;
• at least one optical filter provided outside of said cross-connect such that for each one path that exists between a particular optical input and a particular optical output, the path's input is filtered or the path's output is filtered or both;
• and
• wherein at least one of said paths does not have a filter within said cross-connect in optical communication therewith.