OPTICAL NODE DEVICE, OPTICAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEM, AND OPTICAL-CHANNEL SWITCHING METHOD

摘要

Since it is difficult to switch between optical channels in a backbone optical network without causing increases in power consumption or decreases in the optical-frequency utilization efficiency of the optical network as a whole, this optical node device is provided with the following: a coarse-granularity switching unit that switches between a plurality of channels on a per-optical-carrier-frequency basis; a plurality of optical transponder devices that transmit and receive client signals over said channels; and a control unit that controls the operation of the coarse-granularity switching unit and the optical transponder devices. Each optical transponder device has a bandwidth-changing unit that reduces the bandwidth used by the client signals. Upon detecting a channel-switch trigger, the control unit sends the coarse-granularity switching unit and the optical transponder devices a notification thereof. Upon receiving said notification, the coarse-granularity switching unit switches channels and each optical transponder device transmits, via the channel that the coarse-granularity switching unit switched to, signal light resulting from the client-signal bandwidth reduction performed by that bandwidth-changing unit.