OPTICAL TRANSPORT SWITCHING NODE WITH FRAMER

摘要

A switching node for an optical communication system, has an electrical switch (475,700), coupled to switch electrical signals from an input converter to a selected one of the outputs, and has a framer (710) for reading or writing optical transport overhead information from or to the electrical signals. A bypass path is provided so that at least some of the signals being switched can bypass the framer. This can enable each node to be more efficient or handle more signals, since the framer no longer has to process all the signals. A reduction in power consumption can result. A method of configuring the switching node can involve a management system receiving information about the network, determining a new wavelength routing configuration and sending control signals to the node to configure the switches and control which signals use the bypass path.