Add-Drop Multiplexer (ADM)

An important element of an optical fiber network. A multiplexer combines, or multiplexes, several lower-bandwidth streams of data into a single beam of light. An add-drop multiplexer also has the capability to add one or more lower-bandwidth signals to an existing high-bandwidth data stream, and at the same time can extract or drop other low-bandwidth signals, removing them from the stream and redirecting them to some other network path.