By Robert J. Hoss, Warner Amex Cable Communications Inc., & James A. Keeley, Dallas Morning News
Classically, data communications for public and private institutions have been accommodated on a coaxial institutional network (shadow trunk) using RF data modems at the customer premise.
Warner Amex Cable Communications Inc. has installed an 80-km fiber optic backbone network in the City of Dallas to accommodate high quality, high capacity traffic including video and large private data users. The first major user of this network is the Dallas Morning News, for which a private link was established.
In the Dallas Morning News application, we are transmitting information from two laser-fax machines for platemaking between the plant in downtown Dallas and Plano--a distance of 36 km without repeaters at an optical transmission rate of 44.7 Mb/s. This paper will describe the system, its construction, and performance.