Patent 7986881 was granted and assigned to Level 3 Communications on July, 2011 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Optical communications systems including grooming, protection, restoration, and migration on a unified network platform, and using a unified control plane. The systems may include combinations of optical bypass and mesh restoration, may include combinations of shared mesh and dedicate protection, and may be combinations of long haul, extended long haul, and ultra long haul systems. The systems may also include a configurable DWDM tier to accommodate dynamic traffic patterns, thereby allowing for increased operational flexibility.