Method to provide information concerning a frequency band, a head-end, a network terminator and a terminal realizing such a method and a communication access network including such a head-end, such a network terminator and such a terminal

Abstract

A method to provide information in a communication access network which includes a plurality of terminals (T,T,T,T,) and a head-end (HE). The head-end (HE) includes transceivers (TRX,TRX,TRX,. . . ) and is downstream coupled to each one of the terminals via a downstream common link (Lc) and a tree-like distributive network. Each transceiver provides to a combiner (COMB) included in the head-end (HE) a downstream signal (Sd,Sd,Sd,) in a frequency band (CH,CH,CH,) associated to the transceivers (TRX,TRX,TRX,). The downstream signals (Sd,Sd,Sd,) are together combined into a downstream modulated signal (S-MOD) which is broadcasted from the head-end (HE) to the terminals. A first one (T,) of the terminals is upstream coupled to a first transceiver (TRX,) via an upstream link. The information is provided to the first terminal and concerns a filter frequency band (CH,) which is a first one of the frequency bands which has to be used by the first terminal to filter out of the downstream modulated signal a regenerated downstream signal associated to a first one (Sd,) of the downstream signals provided by the first transceiver (TRX,). The method inserts a pilot tone signal (P,i, P,j, P,k) in the downstream modulated signal within a predefined pilot tone frequency band (CHp,i). The pilot tone signal (P,i, P,j, P,k) includes the information concerning the first frequency band and the method filters out of the downstream modulated signal by the terminal with a derived frequency band (CHd,i, CHd,j, CHd,k) which is derived of the predefined pilot tone frequency band (CHp,i, CHp,j, CHP,k) the pilot tone signal (P,i, P,j, P,k).