Patent 10193688 was granted and assigned to Ciena on January, 2019 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Systems and methods for Physical Coding Sublayer (PCS) encryption implemented by a first network element communicatively coupled to a second network element include utilizing an encryption messaging channel to establish an authenticated session and exchanging one or more encryption keys with a second network element; encrypting a signal, based on the one or more encryption keys; and transmitting the encrypted signal to the second network element.