Title :
UniLINK as a media access protocol for community cable TV
Author :
Grobicki, Chris ; Ulm, John M.
Author_Institution :
LANcity Corp., Andover, MA, USA
Abstract :
UniLINK is a media access control (MAC) protocol optimized for community area networking over new and existing hybrid fiber-coax cable (HFC) infrastructures. It is designed to operate on the tree and branch topology prevalent in the cable industry at distances up to 100 miles from the Head End or Central Office. UniLINK is based on modified TDM concepts, supporting a mix of fixed, contention, and reservation bandwidth concurrently. It dynamically adjusts the mix as offered load changes. The protocol is used in the LANcity family of products. This implementation, with a frequency agile QPSK modem is deployed at over 200 customer sites and provides a packet oriented interface with a high speed, symmetrical, 10 Megabit per second connection. This paper provides an overview of the UniLINK protocol, its operating environment, test results, and possible future enhancements
Keywords :
access protocols; cable television; coaxial cables; data communication; local area networks; optical fibre subscriber loops; quadrature phase shift keying; time division multiplexing; LANcity; MAC protocol; QPSK modem; UniLINK; branch topology; community area networking; community cable TV; hybrid fiber-coax cable infrastructures; media access protocol; modified TDM; operating environment; overview; packet oriented interface; reservation bandwidth; test results; tree topology; Bandwidth; Cable TV; Central office; Frequency; Hybrid fiber coaxial cables; Media Access Protocol; Network topology; Optical fiber cables; Quadrature phase shift keying; Time division multiplexing;
Conference_Titel :
Community Networking, 1995. Integrated Multimedia Services to the Home., Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on
Conference_Location :
Princeton, NJ
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-2756-X
DOI :
10.1109/CN.1995.509551
