By William C. Brinkerhuff, Ohio Bell Telephone Company
The use of fiber optic analog FM transmission in point-to-point CATV trunking applications is now well established and widespread. Owing to advances in single-mode fiber and device technologies, and the maturing of singlemode optical coupler manufacturing, it is now technically sound and economically attractive to implement point- to- multipoint CATV trunking on fiber in multiheadend/hub systems.
In this paper, we describe the Cleveland, Ohio, multiheadend/hub topology, the pros and cons of analog FM versus digital systems, fiber plant and headend/hub design considerations, and end-to-end performance of the installed system.
This system was manufactured and installed by Catel Telecommunications, Inc., of Fremont, California, for Ohio Bell Telephone (OBT), an AMERITECH company.