Cable television distribution network with video-on-demand transmission

A cable television distribution network comprising:

• a center (100) for providing cable television signals,
• one or more optical network terminations (ONT.sub.i),
• a fiber optic distribution network (101 to 107) extending from said center (100) to said optical network terminations (ONT.sub.i) for transmission of said cable television signals from said center (100) to said optical network terminations (ONT.sub.i),
• a respective electrical access network extending from each one of said optical network terminations (ONT.sub.i) to a respective one of a plurality of groups of subscribers (111), each respective electrical access network distributing said cable television signals to said respective one of said plurality of groups of subscribers, and
• means (120 to 125) for providing, in addition to said cable television signals (KTV), subscriber-assigned audio signals together with said cable television signals for transmission to said optical network terminations (ONT.sub.i) via said fiber optic distribution network using wavelength-division multiplexing, said means for transmitting including:
• means (123 to 126) for converting said subscriber-assigned audio signals into digital subscriber-assigned audio signals,
• means for combining said digital subscriber-assigned audio signals which are intended for subscribers connected to said optical network terminations (ONT.sub.i) into a time-division-multiplexed signal (ZM), and
• means for optically distributing said time-division-multiplexed signal (ZM) with said cable television signals to said optical network terminations (ONT.sub.i) using wavelength-division multiplexing, and wherein each respective one of said optical network terminations (ONT.sub.i), includes:
• means (130 to 136, M.sub.1 to M.sub.6) for receiving said time-division-multiplexed signal (ZM) with said cable television signals,
• means for extracting from said time-division-multiplexed signal (ZM) said digital subscriber-assigned audio signals (G.sub.1) which are intended for subscribers connected to said respective one of said optical network terminations (ONT.sub.i), and
• means for frequency-division-multiplexing said extracted digital subscriber-assigned audio signals with said cable television signals and for distributing said frequency-division-multiplexed signals from said respective one of said optical network terminations (ONT.sub.1) to the subscribers (111) connected to said respective one of said optical network terminations (ONT.sub.1).