By Daniel F. Walsh Jr., Jerrold - Applied Media Lab
The transport of control data streams for Addressable Two Way CATV equipment can take several forms, across several different media, with a variety of data formats. The coordination and sequencing of the various data streams to ensure accurate and complete responses becomes complicated when several technologies are combined. Two parameters are of particular concern: delay through a given channel, and the jitter (or delay uncertainty) incurred for each format translation.
This paper presents several scenarios for data transport serving an out-of-band data carrier Addressable system utilizing combinations of RF band, microwave, and telephone line transmission technologies for data signal delivery. Definitions are given for both continuous and discontinuous data streams. Since discontinuous data formats are most sensitive to delay and phase distortion, special solutions are developed for compensating these parameters.