WO2009109018A1 - Method for generating and activating functionalities in a telecommunications network - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method in which the functionalities of packet addressing and routing, cross connection, protection and restoration, Class of Service (CoS) and Quality of Service (QoS) generation, formation of superpackets, tunneling, ticketing and management are generated and activated by means of a new intelligent physical layer, capable of processing digital signals expressed by RF subcarrier arrangements, created and implemented in telecommunications networks.

Description

Title "METHOD FOR GENERATING AND ACTIVATING FUNCTIONALITIES IN A TELECOMMUNICATIONS NETWORK."

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a method capable of generating and activating the functionalities of addressing and routing, cross connection, protection and restoration, Class of Service (CoS) and Quality of Service (QoS) generation, formation of superpackets, tunneling, ticketing and management by means of a new intelligent physical layer, capable of processing digital signals expressed by RF subcarrier arrangements, created and im- plemented in the telecommunications networks by means of dedicated integrated circuits, such as DSP chips, FPGAs and Network Processors. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

"DSP" stands for "Digital Signal Processing". The word "Signal" in said acronym is associated with an electrical signal that is transmitted t- hrough cables or telephone lines or propagating waves. "Digital" is associated with the word "digit" and means a number used in counting similar to the one carried out with the fingers. A digital signal can be interpreted as a flow of numbers capable of representing datasets associated with product quotes, stock quotations, inventories etc. Digital systems use the binary form, and their processing involves numerical calculations. Digital signal processing started its explosive growth from the beginning of 1960s through the use of recursive filters to simulate analog filters (as illustrated in the following publications: CM. Rader, "Digital Filter Design Techniques in the Frequency Domain", PROC. IEEE, VOL. 55, NO. 2, PP. 149 - 171 , February 1967, and Charles M. Rader, "The Rise and Fall of Recursive Digital Filters" IEEE SIGNAL PROCESSING MAGAZINE, November 2006).

The introduction of microprocessors in the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s enabled a more widespread use of DSP applications. However, generic microprocessors of the INTEL X86 type were not ideal for these applications. The need to implement functionalities through intensive numeric processing has guided the major manufacturers of electronic devi- ces to develop dedicated integrated circuits (chips), particularly Texas Instruments®, Analog Devices® and Motorola®. From then on, chips were developed with dedicated architectures programmable by means of specific codes. Currently, these chips are capable of implementing millions of floa- ting-point operations per second. The DSP chips can also be incorporated in very high-complexity sets called "system-on-chip", containing multiple analog and digital functionalities.

Through techniques called "DDS" (DDS - Direct Digital Synthesizer), the DSP chips are capable of generating radiofrequency subcarriers. The publication "Ultra Low Phase Noise DSP Oscillator", by Fred Harris, IEEE SIGNAL PROCESSING MAGAZINE, July 2007, describes the procedures and the results of this implementation.

RF subcarriers have been classically used in the distribution of cable television analog signals since the 1960s. Publication "Cable Televisi- on in USA", by Walter Ciciora, Cable Television Labs INC., Louisville, CO, published in 1995, provides a comprehensive description of the use of RF subcarrier configurations for distributing cable television.

To put the invention in context, the following paragraphs describe how routers and other network elements program their connections. Once it is received, a packet has its source/destination addresses removed and read. A computer program associated with the functionalities of layers 3 and 4 (I- SO/OSI model) uses a previously stored and constantly updated map containing the dynamic network architecture, and selects the output port of the router or network element associated with the closest node, as illustrated in the electronic publication "CISCO, DATASHEET: OSPF DESIGN GUIDE", DOCUMENT ID:7039 (ELECTRONIC PUBLICATION) of 2002. Thus, since their introduction, telecommunications networks have used digital electronic techniques and software to implement the addressing, routing and cross connection functionalities indicated above. The first routers installed in telecommunications networks used generic processors to classify and address the packets from their IP addresses. Hybrid electronic circuits were frequently used together with some dedi- cated integrated circuits. During the 1990s, a new generation of dedicated ultrafast integrated circuits called ASICs (Application-Specific Integrated Circuits) was incorporated into the routers.

More recently, ASICs, FPGAs, Network Processors, and Switch Chipsets were incorporated into the network elements of several telecommunications infrastructures. References Darby, B. "The ASIC and FPGA Design Challenge", IEEE COLLOQUIUM ON THE TEACHING OF DIGITAL SYSTEMS (Digest No. 1998/409), May 18, 1998; Comer, D. E. "Network System Design using Network Processors" PEARSON PRENTICE HALL, 2004, and Simon Stanley, "Packet Switching Chips", www.lightreading.com, describe the features of this new generation of integrated circuits.

However, the considerable advance of the integrated circuit technologies, the dramatic increase in the operation speeds and also in the integration density have intensified the use of several network technologies associated with countless protocols. Metropolitan and long-distance networks were installed to process voice traffic first and then data traffic using the protocol profile ATM/SDH/SONET (according to the following ATM publications: Asynchronous Transfer Mode; The ATM Forum Technical Committee: Circuit Emulation Service Interoperability Specification, version 2.0, 1997; www.ipmplsforum.org; SDH: Synchronous Digital Hierarchy; SDH or Synchronous Digital Hierarchy Standard developed by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU, documented in the G.707 standard and its G.708 and SONET extension: Synchronous Optical Network; standard defined as GR- 253-CORE of Telcordia). These TDM (Time-Division Multiplexing) technologies have enabled the generation of Classes of Services and their management via ATM. Connection integrity was checked by means of the ATM/SDH/SONET technologies, standards capable of providing protection and restoration functionalities in less than 60 milliseconds by monitoring K1 and K2 bytes from the frame. These solutions were able to provide guaranteed delivery, Class of Service and Quality of Service in an extremely reduced time; however, they had very high costs and large complexity due to the multiple protocols invol- ved.

New versions of these technologies and concatenation techniques have partially solved some of these problems, but they still represented a small reduction in terms of costs and especially in complexity. In addition, new network technologies have been introduced (M-

PLS, RPR, POS, METRO ETHERNET, among others), further increasing the diversity of the protocols used.

The result is that large part of the network infrastructures installed by the telecommunications operators is configured by several domains using different protocols from different manufacturers.

The current stage of the telecommunications network shows several difficulties to make the different technologies and legacy protocols compatible and enable new standards for next generation networks (as per NGN - Next Generation Networks, ITU-T Study Group 13, 2005-2008), resul- ting in complex interoperability problems.

All this diversity present in the telecommunications networks generates huge complexities and very high costs related to their management.

Moreover, an end-to-end connection in a simple telecommunications network can be severely affected by other problems, such as, delays and jitter (according to Li Zheng; Liren Zhang; Dong Xu, "Characteristics of Network Delay and Delay Jitter and its Effect on Voice over IP (VoIP)", IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON COMMUNICATIONS, 2001 ICC, VOLUME 1 , ISSUE, June 11 -14, 2001 , page 122 - 126).

Since the middle of the 1990s, applications using RF subcarriers in optical communications and telecommunications networks have been developed. The use of these subcarriers in the optical domain has been researched in the formulation of new addressing techniques capable of overcoming the interoperability problems described above. However, the methods for introducing and reading these subcarriers have used passive techniques and architectures in the high frequencies of the RF or microwave domain.

The prior art provides some teachings related to the use of RF subcarriers as can be noted in the following documents. Document US 5,874,852, published on behalf of NEC Corporation on February 23, 1999, suggests the implementation of some functionalities through high-frequency filtering characteristics. On the other hand, document US 5,854,699 (GTE Laboratories Incorporated), published on Decem- ber 29, 1998, uses passive RF techniques to control the active nodes in a network.

Document US 6,291 ,946 B1 of September 18, 2001 , owned by Telcordia Technologies, uses RF subcarriers through passive techniques to generate protection and restoration in optical networks using Optical Burst Switching. In the same line, document US 7,050,717 B2 proposes the use of subcarriers for label swapping and addressing using the properties of the passive circuits in the RF domain.

US patent application no. 2002/0018263 A1 , published on February 14, 2002, uses the procedures of the so-called fully optical routers, in which the payload is stored in the optical domain and the header is converted to the electronic domain and processed in this format. The router shown uses optical fibers as delay elements and Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers (SOA). US patent application no. 2001/0017723, published on August 30, 2001 , relates to the implementation of Label Swapping, using it for packet removal and sequencing. The procedure involves a local oscillator for up and down conversion and microprocessor processing.

US patent application no 2004/0175175 A1 , published on September 09, 2004, describes a WDM system with a subcarrier modulated for implementing addressing tasks. The addressing-related information modula- tes the subcarrier with information on the destination node. The use of RF subcarriers from a broad spectrum optical source to generate optical carriers in a WDM configuration is also disclosed in document US 2004/0208644 A1 of October 21 , 2004. This document further describes that the RF carriers are used in association with modulation methods to control the distances betwe- en optical carriers. RF subcarriers are also used in US patent application no. 2005/0074037 A1 , of April 07, 2005, to obtain higher spectral efficiency. The OFDM modulation format used in ADSL connections is adapted to be used in long- or short-distance optical fiber connections.

Document WO 01/86998 A1 , filed on May 11 , 2001 on behalf of llotron Limited, also discloses a system capable of using an Optical Transport Network (OTN) aggregating packet traffic and circuit-switched traffic. The present invention is different from the above-cited documents in that it intends to generate and activate functionalities by means of RF subcarrier arrangements through a new intelligent physical layer created and implemented in the telecommunications networks by DSP chips, FPGAs and Network Processors. The use of digital processing associated with subcarrier arrangements has been noted in obtaining higher noise immunity in XDSL modems (X Digital Subscriber Line), according to publication DSL FORUM TECHNICAL REPORT TR-144, "Broadband Multi-Service Architecture & Framework Requirements", ISSUE NUMBER: 1.00, August 2007. The use of RF subcarriers through DSP techniques and its introduction in the optical layer for generating intelligence in the physical layer constitutes an extremely important challenge that has been little or almost not explored and will significantly simplify all the previous procedures associated with RF and microwave techniques. OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION

In view of the foregoing, a method is disclosed capable of generating and activating the functionalities of packet addressing and routing; cross connection; traffic protection and restoration, Class of Service (CoS) and Quality of Service (QoS) generation or traffic discrimination and delivery of differentiated QoS standards; formation of superpackets used in burst traffic; tunneling, direct communication channels between packet source and destination; ticketing, calculations related to the use of a telecommunications network or part thereof; and management by means of a new intelligent physical layer, created and implemented in the telecommunications networks. A further object of the invention is to activate the abovementio- ned functionalities so that the packets remain in the optical domain when traveling through the network, except in their source and destination. An additional object of the invention is to generate and activate the functionalities indicated above on top of any of the legacy protocols (S- DH/SONET, ATM, among others) or new protocols associated with next generation networks (MPLS, RPR, POS, METRO ETHERNET, among others). A further object of the invention is to generate and activate the abovementioned functionalities when the telecommunications networks use any type of multimode or monomode and multicarrier optical fiber (CWDM/DWDM). SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The method of the present invention is directed to generating and activating the functionalities of packet addressing and routing; cross connection; traffic protection and restoration, Class of Service (CoS) and Quality of Service (QoS) generation or traffic discrimination and delivery of differentiated QoS standards; formation of superpackets used in burst traffic; tunneling, direct communication channels between packet source and destination; ticketing, calculations related to the use of a telecommunications network or part thereof; and management by means of a new intelligent physical layer, capable of processing digital signals expressed by RF subcarrier arrangements, created and implemented in the telecommunications networks by de- dicated integrated circuits called DSP chips, FPGAs and Network Processors.

Basically, the method uses the recent advances in digital processing techniques to generate an arrangement of RF subcarriers associated with IP addresses or any other protocol, in the case of an addressing and routing or cross connection functionality, as well as another specific arrangement representing a binary code associated with one or more functionalities to be generated. An arrangement thus generated could be converted to a frequency domain in the microwave range and added to the optical domain in each connection packet. Before being detected by the next connection router or network element, each packet would have its subcarrier arrangement converted from the optical domain to the electronic domain in the microwave frequencies, would then be converted to lower frequencies to be later proces- sed by DSP chips, FPGAs and Network Processors, making it possible to activate the functionalities indicated.

Thus, the packets would remain in the optical domain when traveling through the network, except in their source and destination. A new intelligent physical layer would be created and implemented and the complex interoperability problems, delays, jitter, among others, found in the telecommunications network infrastructures would be treated in a much more efficient manner, with lower cost and drastically reduced complexity. This set of techniques and procedures could be used on top of any of the legacy protocols (SDH/SONET, ATM, among others) or new protocols associated with next generation networks (MPLS, RPR, POS, METRO ETHERNET, among others). BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS Figure 1 depicts the frequency domain with a RF subcarrier arrangement representing (A) a sequence of bits 1 and (B) a sequence of bits 0 and 1 representing an address or any other code.

Figure 2 depicts the address addition stage expressed by RF subcarrier arrangements in packets or frames generated by any information transmission technology.

Figure 3 shows details of the address addition stage expressed by RF subcarrier arrangements.

Figure 4 depicts the reading stage for packet or frame removal or continuation, which activates the addressing and routing functionality. Figure 5 shows details of the reading stage for packet or frame removal or continuation, which activates the addressing and routing functionality.

Figure 6 shows details of collision management between local traffic and passing traffic. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

The present invention relates to a method capable of generating and activating functionalities through a new intelligent physical layer created and implemented in telecommunications networks.

As can be seen in Figure 1 , the graph illustrates in (A) how the frequency spectrum of an arrangement of subcarriers can represent a sequence of bits 1 and in (B), considering the presence of a carrier as bit 1 and its absence as bit 0, the implementation of any address or binary code.

Figure 2 shows details of the address addition stage expressed by RF subcarriers on top of IP packets or frames from any other protocol. A router or a network element 100 sends, through a fiber optic segment or connection 103, a packet or frame 101 to the address addition unit 102 that inte- grates the DSP + FPGA or Network Processor functionalities. Then, the same packet or frame 101 containing the address expressed by a RF subcarri- er arrangement emerges to another fiber optic segment or metallic cable 104. Figure 3 shows the details of the address addition stage. A packet or frame 101 is introduced into the address addition unit 102. An optical coupler 1020 enables a replica of this packet to be sent to an optical/electronic converter 1021 and then to the FPGA processing unit or Network Processor 1022. The FPGA processing unit or Network Processor 1022 informs the addressing and routing functionality to the DSP unit 1023, reads the packet or frame 101 source and destination addresses and sends them to the additional DSP unit 1025 for it to reformat, in the additional DSP unit (1025), the pattern of RF subcarrier arrangement (1024) according to the addresses provided by the FPGA processing unit or Network Processor (1022) reproducing the address/pattern expressed by a RF subcarrier arrangement (1026). In the DSP unit 1023, a pattern of RF subcarrier arrangement

1024 with frequencies between 0.5 MHz and 100 MHz at intervals that can be selected from 0.5 MHz, 1 MHz, 2MHz or other values, according to the convenience of the application, is generated. This pattern of RF subcarrier arrangement 1024 is introduced into the additional DSP unit 1025 that repro- duces the packet or frame addresses expressed by a RF subcarrier arrangement 1026 in frequencies limited to 100 MHz or any other lower frequency. A high-frequency conversion unit 1027 is used to transfer the RF subcarrier arrangement 1026 to higher frequencies according to the connection's line rate.

The packet or frame 101 and the high-frequency spectrum generated by the high-frequency conversion unit 1027 containing the address are laid over in the optical domain by the superposition unit 1028. Then, the same packet or frame 101 containing the address expressed by a RF subcarri- er arrangement is forwarded to the output port of the address addition unit 102. A table embedded in the FPGA processing unit or Network Processor 1022 will indicate the packets that will pass through the addressing stage. Thus, the packets that are not associated with the address addition will be identified and forwarded directly to the output port of the address addition unit 102.

Figure 4 depicts the reading stage of the signaling layer formed by RF subcarriers. In this stage, it should be decided whether to remove a packet to the local traffic of a node or forward it to the next node without removing it from the optical domain.

Then, a packet or frame containing the address expressed by a RF subcarrier arrangement 101 arrives at the optical receiving port of a node. An optical coupler 302 enables a replica of this packet to be sent to the ad- dress reading unit of RF subcarriers 303 in which the address is extracted and sent to the local processing unit 307. In this unit, it is checked whether the present node is the final destination of the packet. If this is the case, the addressing key 304 will be switched to the connection 305 and delivered to the router or local network element 309. If the node in question is not the final destination of the packet, the key 304 will be switched to the connection 306 and connected to the traffic management unit 308, which will keep the packet in the network in the direction of the next node. The traffic management unit 308 also implements local traffic storage and contingency. This unit is programmed to avoid colli- sions between local traffic and passing traffic.

In Figure 5, reception can be described in more details when, at the output port of the optical coupler 302, an optical/electronic converter 3031 is considered as well as the frequency spectrum 301 of the packet and the RF subcarriers configured according to their source and destination addresses. The portion of the frequency spectrum corresponding to the RF subcarriers is selected through an existing high-pass filter in the conversion unit 3032.

In addition, the conversion unit 3032 activates the frequency conversion to the low frequencies, located between 0.5 MHz and 100MHz, or another interval of lower frequencies depending on the application being u- sed. The RF subcarrier arrangement transposed to the low frequency range is sent to the DSP unit 3033 for extraction of the addresses associated with the packet or frame. The address extracted is sent to local processing unit 307, which can be formed by DSP, FPGA and/or Network Processor modules. In this unit, it is checked whether the present node is the final destination of the packet. If this is the case, the addressing key 304 will be switched to the connection 305 and packet will be delivered to the router or local network element 309. If the node in question is not the final destination of the packet, the key 304 will be switched to the connection 306 and the packet will be connected to the traffic management unit 308. The local processing unit 307 activates the key 304 to send the packet to the router or network element 309 of the node in question or to the traffic management unit 308 that receives the packet in the optical domain and forwards it to the optical fiber connected to the next network node.

Another function of the traffic management unit 308 consists of receiving from the router or local network element 309 the local traffic 310 to be inserted in the network through the same port as that of the passing packets. Thus, the traffic management unit 308 shall be able to manage collisions between these types of traffic as well as carry out the complete address addition stage performed by the address addition unit 102.

If the packet or frame related to the passing traffic does not con- tain the RF subcarrier arrangement, the RF subcarrier address reading unit 303 will send a signal to the key 304, which will be switched to the connection 305. Therefore, the packet will be sent directly to the router or network element 309 and the processing systematic based on the routines of layers 3 and 4 (ISO/OSI model) will be activated. With this procedure, the method proposed will be transparent when applied in traditional networks.

Figure 6 shows a diagram including the RF subcarrier address reading unit 303, the local processing unit 307, the key 304, router or network element 309 and the connections 305 and 306. The traffic management unit 308 is shown with the fiber optic segment or connection 103 and the unit 102 described in the transmission module. The operation of connecting the passing traffic and the local traffic 310 to the external medium is indicated throu- gh the key 501. The optical detector coupler 503 informs the presence of packets or frames of the passing traffic to the packet control and storage unit 510, which is responsible for managing collisions between the local traffic and the passing traffic, which will have access to the output port. To implement traffic control, the packet control and storage unit 510 will be formed by DSP, FPGA and/or Network Processor modules. Delay elements consisting of fiber segments or electronic circuits activated inside the DSP, FPGA and/or Network Processor modules will be frequently used, but they are not shown in the drawings for simplification purposes.

It should be emphasized that a set of techniques and procedures similar to the method proposed could be implemented associated with metallic connections involving coaxial and/or twisted-pair cables.

Therefore, it should be understood that the scope of the present invention and its component parts described above are part of some of the preferred embodiments and constitute examples of possible situations, the actual scope of the invention being limited to what is defined in the claims.

Claims

1. A method for generating and activating the functionalities of packet addressing and routing; cross connection; traffic protection and restoration, Class of Service (CoS) and Quality of Service (QoS) generation or traffic discrimination and delivery of differentiated QoS standards; formation of superpackets used in burst traffic; tunneling, direct communication channels between packet source and destination; ticketing, calculations related to the use of a telecommunications network or part thereof, and management, characterized in that the functionalities are generated and activated by me- ans of a new intelligent physical layer, capable of processing digital signals expressed by RF subcarrier arrangements, created and implemented in the telecommunications networks by dedicated integrated circuits, comprising the steps of: generating an arrangement of RF subcarriers associated with protocol addresses as well as another specific arrangement representing a binary code associated with one or more functionalities to be generated; converting the arrangement thus generated to a frequency domain in the microwave range; adding the converted arrangement to the optical domain in each connection packet; converting the subcarrier arrangement of said packet to the electronic domain before these packets are detected by the next network element in a connection; subsequently converting the subcarrier arrangement to lower fre- quencies than the previous one; processing the subcarrier arrangement through dedicated integrated circuits, and activating the functionalities.

2. A method according to claim 1 , characterized in that the de- dicated integrated circuits are DSP chips, FPGAs and Network Processors.

3. A method according to claim 1 , characterized in that the packets travel the network in the optical domain, between source and destinati- on.

4. A method, according to claim 1 , characterized in that legacy protocols comprised in the SDH/SONET, ATM group and the like as wells as the protocols associated with the next generation networks comprised in the MPLS, RPR, POS, METRO ETHERNET group and the like are further implemented and overlaid.

5. A method, according to claim 1 , characterized in that the step of generating a RF subcarrier arrangement comprises the steps of: introducing the data packet (101 ) into the address addition unit (102); replicating the data packet (101) through the optical coupler (1020) and subsequently sending it to an optical/electronic converter (1021) and to a FPGA processing unit or Network Processor (1022); informing the addressing and routing functionality to a DSP unit (1023) through the FPGA processing unit or Network Processor (1022); analyzing packet or frame source and destination addresses (101) and sending said addresses to an additional DSP unit (1025) through the FPGA processing unit or Network Processor (1022); generating in the DSP unit (1023) a RF subcarrier arrangement pattern (1024) to be introduced into the additional DSP unit (1025); reformatting, in the additional DSP unit (1025), the RF subcarrier arrangement pattern (1024) according to the addresses provided by the FP- GA processing unit or Network Processor (1022) reproducing the address/pattern expressed by a RF subcarrier arrangement (1026); transferring, through a high-frequency conversion unit (1027), the

RF subcarrier arrangement (1026) to higher frequencies according to the connection's line rate; adding to the packet in the optical domain, through the superposition unit (1028), the high-frequency spectrum generated by the high- frequency conversion unit (1027) containing the address; and forwarding the packets (101) containing the address expressed by a RF subcarrier arrangement to the output port of the address addition unit (102).

6. A method, according to claim 5, characterized in that the step of generating a RF subcarrier arrangement further comprises the steps of: comparing the packet address with the samples comprised in a table embedded in the FPGA processing unit or Network Processor (1022); and identifying and forwarding directly to the output port of the address addition unit (102) the packets that are not associated with address addition.

7. A method, according to claim 5, characterized in that the model of RF subcarrier arrangement has frequencies of 0.5 MHz to 100 MHz, at intervals selected from 0.5 MHz, 1 MHz and 2MHz.

8. A method according to claim 5, characterized in that the fre- quencies of the RF subcarriers (1026) are limited to 100 MHz.

9. The method, according to claim 1 , characterized in that it further comprises the step of: reading and interpreting the signaling layer formed by RF subcarriers; and removing a packet to the local traffic of a node.

10. The method, according to claim 1 , characterized in that it further comprises the step of: reading and interpreting the signaling layer formed by RF subcarriers; and forwarding the packet to the next node without removing it from the optical domain.

11. The method, according to claim 9, characterized in that the reading and interpretation step further comprises the step of: sending a replica of the packet that has just arrived at the optical receiving port of a node to the RF subcarrier address reading unit (303); extracting the packet, the address or information related to a functionality; sending the address or information related to a functionality extracted to the local processing unit (307); checking in the local processing unit (307) whether the current node is the final destination of the packet; switching the addressing key (304) to the connection (305); delivering the packet to the router or local network element (309).

12. The method, according to claim 10, characterized in that the reading and interpretation step further comprises the step of: sending a replica of the packet that has just arrived at the optical receiving port of a node to the RF subcarrier address reading unit (303); extracting the packet, the address or information related to a functionality; sending the address or information related to a functionality extracted to the local processing unit (307); checking in the local processing unit (307) whether the current node is not the final destination of the packet; switching the key (304) to the connection (306); connecting the traffic management unit (308) that will maintain the packet in the network in the direction of the next node.

13. Method, according to claim 11 or 12, characterized in that the step of sending a replica of the packet that just arrived at the optical receiving port of a node to the RF subcarrier address reading unit (303) comprises the steps of: checking, in an optical/electronic converter (3031), the frequency spectrum (301) of the packet and the RF subcarriers configured according to the source and destination addresses; selecting the portion of the frequency spectrum corresponding to the RF subcarriers through an existing high-pass filter in the conversion unit (3032); activating the frequency conversion in the conversion unit (3032) to convert the spectrum to lower frequencies; and sending the RF subcarrier arrangement transposed to the low frequency range to the DSP unit (3033) for extracting the addresses or information related to a functionality associated with the packet or frame.

14. The method according to claim 13, characterized in that the frequencies converted in the conversion unit (3032) to low frequencies are between 0.5 MHz and 100 MHz.

15. The method, according to claim 12, characterized in that the step of connecting the traffic management unit (308) that will maintain the packet in the network in the direction of the next node comprises the steps of: receiving the local traffic (310) from the router or local network element (309); and inserting the local traffic (310) in the network through the passing packet port.

16. The method according to claim 15 characterized in that the traffic management unit (308) further comprises: a fiber optic connection (103) and an address addition unit (102); a key (501 ) to determine the connection of the passing traffic and the local traffic to the external medium; an optical detector coupler (503) to inform about the presence of passing traffic packets; and a packet control and storage unit (510) that receives the passing traffic packets and manages the collision between the local traffic and the passing traffic with access to the output port.