An optical WDM-TDM network includes a plurality of devices, each of the devices including at least one optical add/drop device adapted to drop optical signals of at least one channel of a plurality of received channels and pass through the remaining channels, at least one receiver, for receiving the at least one dropped channel from the at least one optical add/drop device, an aggregation device for assembling optical signals from the at least one receiver into original data formats, at least one transmitter for transmitting wavelength division multiplexed optical signals on the plurality of channels, a de-aggregation device for disassembling input data into blocks of data to be transmitted as optical signals by the at least one transmitter, and a controller for processing a global timing schedule. The plurality of devices communicate according to the global timing schedule by transmitting and receiving optical signals within bandwidth regions allocated by the global timing schedule for communication within a specific channel of the plurality of channels.