Infinera Corporation
OPTICAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEM TRANSMITTING AND RECEIVING OPTICAL SUBCARRIERS HAVING DIFFERENT SPECTRAL WIDTHS AND/OR POWER VALUES

Abstract:

An example system includes a hub transceiver and a plurality of edge transceivers. The hub transceiver is operable to transmit, over a first communications channel, a first message to each of the edge transceivers concurrently, including an indication of available network resources on an optical communications network. The message may be transmitted through amplitude modulation of a plurality of optical subcarriers output from the hub. Each of the edge transceiver is operable to transmit, over a second communications channel, such as a subcarrier having a reduced spectral width and/or power than optical subcarriers carrying user data. The second communications channel carries a respective second message to the hub transceiver including an indication of a respective subset of the available network resources selected by the edge transceiver for use in communicating over the optical communications network. Further, the edge transceiver is operable to receive, from the hub transceiver, a third message acknowledging receipt of a selection and a fourth message confirming an assignment of the selected subset of the available network resources to the edge transceiver.