Arris Enterprises LLC

William P Dawson

Marcel F Schemmann

Derald Cummings

Zoran Maricevic

Zhijian Sun

Dean Painchaud

Methods and apparatuses are provided to modify existing overlay system architectures in a cost effective manner to meet the growing demand for narrowcast services and to position the existing overlay systems for additional future modifications. The implementations of the improved overlay system of this disclosure re-digitize narrowcast analog signals after they have been QAM modulated and upconverted to RF frequencies and replace the analog narrowcast transmitters with digital narrowcast transmitters. In the fiber nodes, the received narrowcast signals are converted back to analog signals and combined with analog broadcast signals for transmission to the service groups.

Digital optical transmitter for digitized narrowcast signals

Disclosed herein are techniques for bidirectional communication in a network, such as a cable television (CATV) system, for return band with echo cancellation. The techniques result in a minimum loss of available return bandwidth to facilitate forward out of band (OOB) communication to a client device, e.g., set top box (STB), within the extended return band, such as a return band extended beyond a frequency previously used for OOB communications.

Echo cancellation in a bidirectional communication system for out of band signaling to a user device

Overlay system with digital optical transmitter for digitized narrowcast signals

Disclosed herein are techniques for a full or partial elimination of a diplexer in the communication system. Embodiments disclosed include techniques for avoiding the loss of usable frequency spectrum to reduce the bit/Hz efficiency needed in a bidirectional high bitrate system.

Growing community of inventors

Manlius, NY, United States of America

William P Dawson