1. Safety procedure for optical fiber systems, transporting optical signals between a transmitter terminal and a receiver terminal, with at least one pump source to enhance said optical signal, by which safety procedure the optical input power fed into said optical fiber system is automatically shut off or at least reduced in case of an unintended escape of light from at least one fiber, wherein
a safety interface is provided in the transmission line, said interface detecting changes of the total optical output power in at least one fiber to be received by said receiver terminal and initiating a shut-down of said input power as soon as a decrease of said total output power exceeding a predefined value is detected within a predefined time window.
2. Safety procedure according to claim 1, wherein the optical fiber system is an unrepeatered system with high energy pump sources.
3. Safety procedure according to claim 1, wherein in case of a safety shut-down all pump sources are shut down.
4. Safety procedure according to claim l, wherein in case of a safety shut-down only the pump sources of those fiber are shut down, in which a failure has been detected.
5. Safety procedure according to claim 1, wherein in case of a safety shut-down also signal sources are shut down.
6. Safety procedure according to claim 1, wherein closed to or in the transmitter terminal a safety interface is provided, said interface detecting a portion of pump power per fiber, that reaches the transmitter terminal, and initiating a shut-down of the signal power as soon as a decrease of pump power exceeding a predefined value is detected.
7. Safety procedure according to claim 1, wherein at least one piece fiber amplifier is inserted in the fiber line.
8. Safety procedure according to claim 1, wherein more than one time window are predefined and the safety shut-down occurs a soon as a detected decrease of total output power exceeds the predefined value within any of said time windows.
9. Safety interface for optical fiber systems, transporting optical signals between a transmitter terminal and a receiver terminal, with at least one pump source to enhance said optical signal, wherein
said safety interface to be provided in the transmission line is capable of detecting changes of the total optical output power per fiber to be received by said receiver terminal and generating an initiating signal for a shut-down of the optical input power fed into said optical fiber system as soon as it detects a decrease of said total output power exceeding a predefined value within a predefined time window.
10. Safety interface according to claim 9, wherein more than one time window is predefined and the initializing signal for the safety shut-down is produced as soon as a detected decrease of output power exceeds the predefined value within any of said time windows.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
1. A method of soft handoff of a mobile terminal in an Internet Protocol (IP) wireless network, said method comprising the steps of:
said mobile terminal obtaining an IP multicasting address;
said mobile terminal creating a multicasting group of a plurality of multicast IP network interfaces wherein each multicast IP network interface is located at said mobile terminal and is based on the IP multicasting address; and
simultaneously communicating at the IP level between said multicast IP network interfaces and a plurality of base stations via separate IP channels between said mobile terminal and said plurality of base stations.
2. The method in accordance with claim 1 further comprising dynamically adjusting the plurality of multicast IP network interfaces within said multicasting group.
3. The method in accordance with claim 2 wherein said step of dynamically adjusting comprises said mobile terminal issuing a join message from a particular multicast IP network interface in order to cause said particular multicast IP network interface to be included in said multicasting group.
4. The method in accordance with claim 2 wherein said step of dynamically adjusting comprises said mobile terminal issuing a leave message to a particular multicast IP network interface in order to cause said particular multicast IP network interface to be removed from said multicasting group.
5. The method of claim 2 wherein said step of dynamically adjusting is performed in accordance with at least one of error rate, signal strength, and network constraints.
6. A method of soft handoff of a mobile terminal in an Internet Protocol (IP) wireless network, said method comprising the steps of:
said mobile terminal creating a multicasting group of multicast network interfaces;
simultaneously communicating at the IP level between said multicast network interfaces and a plurality of base stations via separate channels between said mobile terminal and said plurality of base stations;
extracting frames from multicast messages, each frame including a multicast message portion and a header portion; and
performing IP packet aggregation for an plurality of multicast message portions in order to produce a master IP data packet.
7. The method in accordance with claim 1 further comprising the step of said mobile terminal tracking CDMA IP pilot signals from a base station to determine the signal strength of a particular communication channel from said base station.
8. A method of soft handoff of a mobile terminal in a Internet Protocol (IP) wireless network, said method comprising the steps of:
said mobile terminal creating a multicasting group of multicast network interfaces;
simultaneously communicating at the IP level between said multicast network interfaces and a plurality of base stations via separate channels between said mobile terminal and said plurality of base stations; and
said mobile terminal tracking CDMA IP pilot signals from a base station to determine the signal strength of a particular communication channel from said base station;
wherein said step of tracking CDMA IP pilot signals includes the steps of:
classifying a CDMA pilot signal as a candidate CDMA pilot signal if a signal strength associated with the CDMA pilot signal exceeds a predetermined threshold, otherwise classifying the CDMA pilot signal as unacceptable; and
classifying said CDMA pilot signal as an active CDMA pilot signal if a base station associated with said candidate CDMA pilot signal indicates that the particular communication channel associated with the candidate CDMA signal is capable of maintaining an IP level communication from the mobile station through the base station to the network.
9. The method in accordance with claim 1 wherein said simultaneous communication includes the step of transmitting information in a forward direction to said mobile terminal by broadcasting the information as a multicast message from the plurality of said base stations to the multicast IP network interfaces in said multicasting group created by said mobile terminal.
10. The method in accordance with claim 1 wherein said simultaneous communication includes the step of transmitting information in a reverse direction from said multicast IP network interfaces in said mobile terminal to the wireless network in response to a sender of a multicast message to the mobile terminal.
11. A system for soft handoff of a mobile terminal in a wireless network, said system comprising:
a plurality of base stations connected to the wireless network,
a mobile terminal including a plurality of multicast IP network interfaces each located at said mobile terminal, and
a processor at said mobile terminal, said processor including a medium encoded with processing instructions to
obtain an IP multicasting address,
create a multicasting group of a number of said plurality of multicast IP network interfaces, each interface being based on the IP multicasting address, and
cause simultaneous communication at the IP level between said number of said plurality of multicast IP network interfaces at said mobile terminal and a number of said plurality of base stations.
12. The system in accordance with claim 11 wherein said medium is further encoded with processing instructions to dynamically adjust the ones of said plurality of multicast IP network interfaces included in said multicasting group.