Christopher Scott Rutledge

US Patent:

7079768, Jul 18, 2006

Filed:

Mar 29, 2001

Appl. No.:

09/820513

Inventors:

Alex Ruan - Alpharetta GA, US
Christopher L. Rutledge - Somerset NJ, US

Assignee:

Lucent Technologies Inc. - Murray Hill NJ

International Classification:

H04J 14/00

US Classification:

398 58, 398 45, 398 49

Abstract:

A rapid and reconfigurable deployment of services in a CATV system is enabled by the use of dynamic passive optical networks (DPONs) in accordance with the present invention. By delivering a number of wavelengths to the PON and using various dynamically reconfigurable groupings of the wavelengths to support differing subsets of users, the maximum capabilities of a static PON architecture are greatly exceeded. In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, the dynamic PON device accepts M wavelengths on a single optical fiber. The output of the dynamic PON device includes N output ports. Each of the M signals can be delivered to none, some or all of the N output ports. At its input, the DPON includes an optical amplifier for amplifying the multi-wavelength input signal to a desired power level prior to splitting. A 1:N channel power splitter couples to the output of the optical amplifier. Each of the power splitter outputs contains all M wavelength channels of the optical fiber.