By Aravanan Gurusami, Jeffery Cox, and Mark Chapman, Philips Broadband Networks Inc.
The fiber/coaxial network which is currently used for carrying entertainment video in mostly analog fo;mat is likely to carry other types of traffic in the near future. The types of traffic that will traverse the super highway fall in three broad categories, namely, (i) one way for traditional broadcast video delivery (ii) asymmetric two-way for video on demand services where minimum traffic exists for subscriber initiated controls and (iii) symmetric two-way services like voice, video-telephone, and computer network inter-connections. This paper focuses on the design aspects of a multimedia delivery device with symmetric delivery capacity of Nx64KBits/S for subscribers connected to the CATV network. The performance objectives for circuit switched and packet switched networks for both connection oriented and connectionless types are discussed with acceptable compromises required for a low-cost implementation of a Broadband Communication Gateway (BCG) system. This system provides Nx64KBit!S capability with appropriate interfaces for voice and data delivery and proper telephone network interfaces for universal switching by the Central Office (CO).