Optical telecommunications network

摘要

PCT No. PCT/GB95/01176 Sec. 371 Date Dec. 30, 1996 Sec. 102(e) Date Dec. 30, 1996 PCT Filed May 23, 1995 PCT Pub. No. WO95/33324 PCT Pub. Date Dec. 7, 1995A packet carried on an optical network is routed by carrying out a logic operation on an address word carried in a packet header and a predetermined discriminator word. A routing decision is made in accordance with the result of the logic operation. The logic operation may be a bit-wise Boolean AND operation. An additional logic operation may be carried out with an additional discriminator word to determine whether the packet is destined for a remote region of the network. In this case, the packet may be steered directly to the remote region.