An example system includes a hub transceiver and a plurality of edge transceivers. Each of the edge transceivers has one of several types of configurations for communicating with an optical communications network. Each type of configuration is associated with a different responsive optical subcarrier assignment protocol. The hub transceiver is operable to determine a plurality of optical subcarriers available for assignment by the hub transceiver to the plurality of the edge transceivers for use in communicating over the optical communications network, and assign, to each of the edge transceivers, a respective subset of the optical subcarriers. Assignment includes, determining that each of the edge transceivers has a particular type of configuration, and assigning a respective subset of the optical subcarriers to the edge transceiver according to the optical subcarrier assignment protocol associated with the that type of configuration.