US Patent 7302177 Optical transmission system including a plurality of optical transmission devices

Two multiplexing/demultiplexing sections of working and protection sides are prepared for each of a plurality of optical transmission devices which constitute a system, and the optical transmission devices are synchronized with each other to execute switching between the working and protection sides so that one of the working and protection sides can be selected for the entire system. Each expansion device collects optical line trouble information for each of the working and protection sides, and transmits to a main device. The main device integrates the information with trouble information transmitted from expansion devices per expansion device. The main device converts the integrated trouble information into point information, totals for each of the working and protection sides, compares, and decides which of the working and protection sides is to be selected.