Optical dispersion compensation

1. A method comprising:

computing an amount of dispersion contributed by a first span of an optical network for at least one channel of a multi-channel optical signal;

accumulating the amount of dispersion into a prior accumulated dispersion, if the at least one channel is terminated prior to compensation;

providing a dispersion signal representing a sum of the prior accumulated dispersion and a dispersion of a current span of the optical network; and

controlling a dispersion compensator in accordance with the dispersion signal to optically compensate for the total dispersion of the optical signal, wherein the dispersion compensator comprises a plurality of cascaded single channel compensators.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the multi-channel signal is carried by an optical fiber.

3. The method of claim 2 comprising:

tapping the optical fiber to provide a tapped optical signal.

4. The method of claim 3 comprising:

measuring an amount of dispersion for at least one channel of the tapped optical signal.

5. The method of claim 2 comprising:

estimating a length of the optical fiber from a propagation time of a signal communicated between a first network element and a second network element coupled by the optical fiber; and

estimating an amount of dispersion from the length L and a pre-determined dispersion characteristic D λ of the optical fiber, wherein the estimated amount of dispersion represents the computed amount of dispersion.

6. The method of claim 3 comprising:

measuring a difference in propagation times for distinct spectral components of a signal communicated on a first channel of the tapped optical signal.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the dispersion signal corresponds to an amount of chromatic dispersion.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the at least one channel is a supervisory channel.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the dispersion compensator is controlled at pre-determined intervals of time to provide the optical compensation.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the dispersion compensator is continuously controlled to provide the optical compensation.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the optical dispersion compensation is provided without interruption of the multi-channel optical signal.

12. An apparatus comprising:

a dispersion calculator providing an amount of dispersion associated with at least one channel of a multi-channel optical signal carried by a first span of an optical network, the dispersion calculator accumulating the amount of dispersion into a prior accumulated dispersion, if the at least one channel is terminated prior to compensation; wherein the dispersion calculator provides an accumulated dispersion signal representing a sum of the prior accumulated dispersion and a dispersion of a current span of the optical network; and

a compensator controlled in accordance with the accumulated dispersion signal to optically compensate for total dispersion of the multi-channel optical signal, wherein the dispersion compensator comprises a plurality of cascaded single channel compensators.

13. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein the dispersion signal corresponds to a detected amount of dispersion, the apparatus further comprising:

a tap coupled to provide a tapped optical signal including the at least one channel from the multi-channel optical signal;

a detector measuring a difference in propagation times for individual spectral components of a signal carried by the tapped optical signal to detect an amount of dispersion associated with the at least one channel, wherein the detector provides the detected dispersion as the dispersion signal.

14. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein the optical signal is carried by an optical fiber.

15. The apparatus of claim 14 comprising:

a first network element and a second network element coupled by the optical fiber, wherein the first network element computes a length (L) of the optical fiber, wherein the dispersion calculator computes an estimated amount of dispersion from the length and a pre-determined dispersion characteristic D μ of the optical fiber.

16. A method comprising:

computing an amount of dispersion on a first channel carried by a first span of an optical network;

accumulating the amount of dispersion into a prior accumulated dispersion, if the first channel is terminated prior to compensation, wherein the prior accumulated dispersion is embedded into the first channel of a second span of the optical network;

providing a dispersion signal representing a sum of the prior accumulated dispersion and a dispersion of a current span; and

controlling a dispersion compensator in accordance with the dispersion signal to optically compensate for total dispersion of the optical signal carried by the current span, wherein the dispersion compensator comprises a plurality of cascaded single channel compensators.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein the dispersion compensator comprises at least one of a micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) mirror array, a fiber Bragg grating, a tunable etalon filter, a phase shifting planar waveguide, and a tunable diffraction grating.

18. An apparatus comprising:

a plurality of spans;

a plurality of network elements coupling the spans to form an optical communication network, wherein at least one network element incorporates:

a dispersion calculator providing an amount of dispersion associated with at least one channel of a multi-channel optical signal communicated on a current span terminated by the at least one network element, wherein the dispersion calculator provides a dispersion signal corresponding to an accumulated dispersion between a selected span and the at least one network element; and

a compensator controlled in accordance with the dispersion signal to optically compensate for accumulated dispersion of the optical signal, wherein the compensator comprises a plurality of cascaded single channel compensators.

19. The apparatus of claim 18 wherein the dispersion signal corresponds to a detected amount of dispersion associated with the optical signal.

20. The apparatus of claim 18 wherein the dispersion signal corresponds to an estimated amount of dispersion associated with the optical signal.