Optical networks are increasingly relied upon for communications and data transfer activities. However, while many data transfer activities involve communications across large geographical distances, the spatial expanse of “proprietary networks,” or those networks controlled by individual network providers, is often somewhat more limited. As a result, some network providers have sought to implement a system in which each network provider shares access to its own proprietary network, or “domain,” with other network providers. In that case, optical signals would be passed from one domain to another, thereby expanding the spatial communications capabilities of all users. By employing such a system, network providers hope to enable national and international communications services in line with customer demands.
One of the significant obstacles to the above system of network sharing is ensuring network interoperability, or the ability of one domain to effectively receive, process, and/or propagate optical signals from another domain. Specifically, in many cases, network providers are related to the communications service providers, and the various domains are configured to be consistent with specific communications methods and protocols. Components included in the network forming each domain, while well-suited for handling intra-domain optical signals, are often ill-suited to interacting with inter-domain optical signals, due to an inability to recognize degradation of the signals. Until recently, solutions to this issue focused on mainly software-implemented strategies to allow optical signals to be recognized by different domains. However, software solutions have failed to completely solve the problem, due to the requirement to reveal proprietary network information in order to create the software. As such, there is a need for an optical communications system in which domain interoperability is enhanced.