Patent 7206510 was granted and assigned to Nippon Telegraph and Telephone on April, 2007 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A first optical fiber transmission path is used to transmit continuous-wave light for upstream signal light from the center node to each of the remote nodes, while a second optical fiber transmission path is used to transmit downstream signal light from the center node to each remote node and to transmit upstream signal light (obtained by modulating continuous-wave light) from each remote node to the center node. In this network, specific wavelength bandwidths are allocated to each remote node for the continuous-wave lights (for upstream signal lights) and the downstream signal lights, and the wavelength bandwidths for the continuous-wave lights (for upstream signal lights) and the downstream signal lights are alternately set.