Patent 7263289 was granted and assigned to Nippon Telegraph and Telephone on August, 2007 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The present invention relates to a node used in an optical communication network, and comprises functions for transferring and receiving data, and a unit for establishing and releasing a cut through path to a node of the next stage, the establishing and releasing unit having a detecting unit which detects the arrival of a request packet for establishing a cut through path to the node stage.