Use of polarization for differentiation of information

摘要

The present invention discloses a system for signalling within optical or combined optical/electronic networks wherein a first transmission node executes polarization multiplexing on transmitted traffic, and at one or more intermediate nodes one or more of the following processes are carried out on the sent traffic: demultiplexing by polarization and/or polarization and/or SOP-alignment. Further a method for packet handling within optical packet switched networks where, at a first transmission node carries out polarization demultiplexing of transmitted traffic, and at one or a number of intermediate nodes carries out one or more of the following processes on the transmitted traffic; demultiplexing by polarization, and/or polarization and/or SOP-alignment. Said separation into states of polarization is used in separation of QoS-classes.

主权项

1. A node for use in an optical or combined optical/electronic communication network, the node comprising an optical input and an optical output, and being configured to:
determine whether data packets received at the optical input belong to a first quality-of-service class or to a second quality-of-service class based on a state of polarization of each received data packet and based on a predetermined mapping between quality-of-service classes and respective states of polarization; and transmit received data packets from the optical output with a state of polarization that depends on which quality-of-service class each data packet belongs to.