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US 7,796,890 B1Granted
Hybrid PON/surface wave terrestrial access
AssigneeSprint Communications Company L.P.
InventorHarold W. Johnson
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system and method for distributing high bandwidth signals is disclosed. The system and method use electrical transmission lines to distribute high bandwidth RF signals. The RF signals are sent along the electrical transmission lines using surface wave transmission. RF/Optical converters located along the electrical transmission lines are used to convert the RF signals into optical signals. Passive optical networks (PON) are used to transmit the optical signals between the RF/Optical converter and a customer site or location.
Claims16
A method, comprising:
- distributing a plurality of optical signals over a first passive optical network (PON) from a service node to a first radio frequency (RF)/Optical converter coupled to an electrical transmission line;
- converting the plurality of optical signals into a plurality of RF signals at the first RF/Optical converter;
- distributing the plurality of RF signals along the electrical transmission line to a second RF/Optical converter using surface wave transmission;
- receiving the plurality of RF signals at the second RF/Converter coupled to the electrical transmission line;
- converting, at the second RF/Optical converter, a first subset of the plurality of RF signals to a first set of optical signals;
- and
- distributing the first set of optical signals to a first customer site using a second PON.
4 more elements
A communication system comprising:
- an electrical transmission line;
- a service node configured to transmit a plurality of optical signals over a first passive optical network (PON) to a first radio frequency (RF)/Optical converter coupled to the electrical transmission line;
- a surface wave transmission system configured to transmit a plurality of radio frequency (RF) signals along the electrical transmission line using surface wave transmission;
- the first RF/Optical converter coupled to the electrical transmission line, where the first RF/Optical converter is configured to convert the plurality of optical signals into the plurality of RF signals;
- a second RF/Optical converter coupled to the electrical transmission line, where the second RF/Optical converter is configured to convert a first subset of the plurality of RF signals into a first set of optical signals;
- a PON connected to the second RF/Optical converter;
- the second PON connected to a first customer site and configured to transmit the first set of optical signals between the second RF/Optical converter and the first customer site.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.