Programmable optical network architecture

1. A network architecture comprising:

a plurality of nodes interconnected with one another in a mesh topology wherein said interconnections are optical wavelength division multiplexed (WDM);

CHARACTERIZED IN THAT

communications between the nodes employs optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) over the WDM interconnections;

wherein each one of said nodes comprise:

a control plane virtualization module;

a wavelength selective switch (WSS) module for wavelength switching; and

an OFDM module for sub-carrier switching; and

wherein said OFDM module includes:

a plurality of OFDM receivers;

a plurality of OFDM transmitters;

a sub-carrier switch interconnecting the receivers to the transmitters.

2. The architecture of claim 1 wherein said OFDM module further includes;

a plurality in input FIFOs, interconnecting the receivers to the sub-carrier switch;

a plurality of output FIFOs, interconnecting outputs of the subcarrier switch to inputs of the transmitters,

wherein each one of said FIFOs queue a subset of sub-carriers.

3. The architecture of claim 2 wherein said OFDM module further includes: the plurality of receivers each having:

a parallel signal detector;

a high speed analogue to digital converter; and

a digital signal processor;

the plurality of transmitters each having:

a packet received at an incoming internal input can only be sent to an outgoing outside connection.