Advanced Channel Monitoring for Optical Layer Management

We propose an optical line level signaling scheme that enables optical layer management for transparent optical networks. At the heart of this scheme is a recently demonstrated advanced channel status monitoring method based on spectral recognition of protocol-specific features such as frame alignment header and alarm indication signals. Indicators for signal quality and channel usage are also provided. The method required some modifications of SONET Line level signaling scheme and the implication of these modificiations are also discussed.