An Optical Communication System for Transmitting RF Signals Downstream and Bidirectional Telephony Signals Which Also Include RF Control Signals Upstream

Abstract

A method of transmitting TV signals and bidirectional telephone communication signals on a single optical fiber, existing telephone twisted pair infrastructure, and existing coaxial cable infrastructure. In addition to allowing the downstream transmission of television channels as well as bidirectional telephone communication, the single optical fibers also provides for the upstream travel of television related signals while requiring minimal changes of the existing infrastructure.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application is a continuation application of U.S. application Ser. No. 09 / 879,395 filed Jun. 12, 2001 and now U.S. Pat. No. 7,058,966 issued Jun. 6, 2006, which is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 09 / 309,717 filed May 11, 1999 and now U.S. Pat. No. 6,460,182 issued Oct. 1, 2002, each of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference.TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for carrying on simultaneous communications over a single optical fiber by using two different operating frequencies, and more specifically to methods and apparatus for use with WDM (wave division multiplexing) at two different wavelengths of light to provide bidirectional telephonic communication using TDM (time division multiplexing) at one wavelength of light and transmitting TV signals down stream only at another wavelength. TV control signals are returned by the telephonic communication path ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0011] The above objects and advantages are achieved in the present invention by methods and apparatus which comprise transmitting light at a first wavelength to carry telephonic signals between a first telephone-related device and a second telephone-related device, or location and also transmitting light at a second wavelength to carry TV signals from a TV signal source to an end user(s). The wavelengths or light are carried through a single optical fiber from a first-end to a second-end. The first and second wavelengths of light are received at the second-end of the optical fiber, and the signals on the first wavelength of light are detected and converted to first electrical signals at a first frequency band suitable for carrying telephonic signals such as voice telephone and computer modem signal, at a frequency band of about 64 KHz. The received second wavelength of light is also detected, and the detected light is converted to electrical signals, within a second frequency band, typically between 5 and 800 MHZ and are representative of TV channel signals. The telephonic electrical signals are transmitted to a receiving telephone or other telephone-related device and the electrical signals representative of TV signals are transmitted to a TV signal recei

Problems solved by technology

However, as mentioned above, optical fibers have extremely high band widths and use of an optical fiber for a single ping-pong telephone channel is a very ineffective use of the fiber and, in fact, the available bandwidth of an optical fiber makes it possible to use a transmission technique such as TCM or ping-pong at one frequency and then by the use of WDM technology to use another technique at a second frequency.

However, the use of optical fibers for transmission allows broad band transmission to a large numbers of customers and, since substantially all of the transmission of TV signals is one way (i.e. unidirectional), if a single optical fiber were used solely for the TV signals there would be almost no use of the selected wavelength of light for carrying return signal, which are typically control or information signals.

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