Abstract

The last 100 feet to a subscriber consists of the drop from the pole plus any inside wiring. This facility uses braided coax in a hybrid fiber coax system, while that used for fiber-to-the-curb is twisted wire pair. For both systems, there is keen interest in the noise environment at frequencies in the 5-50 MHz band. Experimental evidence^1,2 suggests that the coaxial drop and inside wire are the primary points of noise ingress at the above frequencies in an HFC system. Measurements³ for twisted pair can be extrapolated to higher frequencies to estimate the background noise on wire pair drop. Comparison of results on both types of drop indicate that background noise for coax drop may be on average 15 dB higher than for balanced wire pair.

© 1996 Optical Society of America