FIELD: physics, communications.
SUBSTANCE: invention relates to optical communications techniques. Information exchange is facilitated by controlling transmission capacity between a first network element and a second network element mutually connected by a two-way optical data transmission line, when essentially transmitting one-way data traffic in form of a binary stream of a virtual concatenation group (VCG) transmitted in the first direction through the two-way optical data transmission line. This method involves the following: transmission of transmission capacity information in the first direction through the two-way optical data transmission line in a binary stream by allocating information in one or more control bytes indicated in the conventional way for the VCG binary stream, transmission of control information in the second (opposite) direction in the existing binary stream which is not related to the above mentioned one-way data traffic; where the existing binary stream should pass through the data transmission line connecting the first network element and the second network element, but optionally coinciding with the above mentioned line; the described information should be allocated in one or more control bytes of the existing binary stream.
EFFECT: provision for information exchange.
11 cl, 6 dwg
