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Systems and methods for performing optical line terminal (OLT) failover switches in optical networks

  • US 10,608,735 B2
  • Filed: 05/04/2017
  • Issued: 03/31/2020
  • Est. Priority Date: 05/04/2016
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. An optical network, comprising:

  • an optical fiber;

    a first optical line terminal (OLT) coupled to the optical fiber;

    a first optical network terminal (ONT) having a tunable optical transmitter coupled to the optical fiber and a tunable optical receiver coupled to the optical fiber, the first ONT configured to tune the tunable optical transmitter and the tunable optical receiver to a first wavelength pair of the first OLT for communication with the first OLT through the optical fiber;

    a second OLT coupled to the optical fiber and configured to communicate with the first ONT through the optical fiber on a second wavelength pair, the second OLT configured to allocate a first plurality of time slots to the first ONT, at least a first time slot of the first plurality of time slots allocated to the first ONT by the second OLT prior to a communication failure between the first ONT and the first OLT while the tunable optical transmitter and the tunable optical receiver are tuned to the first wavelength pair for communication with the first OLT,wherein the second OLT is configured to allocate the first plurality of time slots to the first ONT by transmitting control data through the optical fiber at a wavelength of the second wavelength pair,wherein a first portion of the control data indicates that at least the first time slot of the first plurality of time slots is allocated to the first ONT,wherein a second portion of the control data indicates that at least a second time slot of the first plurality of time slots is allocated to the first ONT,wherein the tunable optical transmitter and the tunable optical receiver are tuned to the first wavelength pair during transmission of the first portion of the control data by the second OLT such that the first ONT does not respond to the first portion of the control data,wherein the first ONT is configured to detect the communication failure between the first ONT and the first OLT and to tune the tunable optical transmitter and the tunable optical receiver to the second wavelength pair in response to detection of the communication failure,wherein the second portion of the control data is received by the first ONT after detection of the communication failure,wherein the first ONT is configured to transmit data to the second OLT in at least the second time slot based on the second portion of the control data, andwherein the second OLT is configured to detect a failover switch associated with the first ONT based on a presence of the data in the second time slot of the first plurality of time slots and to allocate a second plurality of time slots to the first ONT according to a time division multiplexing (TDM) algorithm in response to detection of the failover switch.

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