COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM WITH STAR / RING TOPOLOGY

摘要

A communications system includes an optical network which has a star topology. A number of nodes are located at the periphery of the network and are connected by the optical network to the hub of the network. In addition at least some of the nodes lie on a star network. Nodes use the ring network for communicating traffic to another node for those node-node pairs where connection via the ring network requires less fibre than connection via the star network.