OADM is a device used in WDM networks that transmits multiple wavelengths of light over a single fiber to increase the overall bandwidth between two points. Designed to add/deploy one or more CWDM/DWDM channels to multiple fibers. Therefore, the optical add/demultiplexer can be divided into CWDM OADM and DWDM OADM according to its specific applications. In most cases, OADM is deployed with CWDM or DWDM MUX/DEMUX. In combination with MUX/DEMUX, it can be implemented into a point-to-point optical transmission system of 3 points.

How does OADM fit between point-to-point networks?

Considering that an OADM can separate the multi-color band of signals and extract certain colors to be removed from or added to the original signal set. This functionality allows intermediate locations between remote sites to access the regular segment of point-to-point fiber that connects them. Specifically, if multiple multi-color signals are transmitted between two locations A and C (as shown in the image below) and the customer also wants to connect to the data center located at B (between A and C). OADM can be placed in B to make some colors appear. Broken colors are unloaded at location B, connected to equipment at that location, and added back to the set (now with B information) and connected to A and/or C.

OADM system