NETWORK FOR MULTIMEDIA ASYNCHRONOUS TRANSFER MODE DIGITAL SIGNAL TRANSMISSION AND COMPONENTS THEREOF

摘要

Apparatus and methods for transmitting digital multimedia signals in asynchronous transfer mode over unshielded twisted pair wiring in a multipoint topology in an improved cost-effective manner. The multimedia digital signals originate from and are received by a plurality of receiving stations connected via twisted pair wiring. The method comprises feeding input digital signals selected from the group consisting of voice, fax, video and data from signal nodes; controlling allocation of bandwidth to the input digital signals as between sending stations; providing a source data stream in binary format derived from allocated input digital signals; converting a source data stream into a digital symbol stream capable of being transmitted over the wiring; driving and filtering the digital symbol stream over the wiring; splitting the filtered digital symbol stream into a plurality of replicated digital symbol streams; amplifying and selecting each of the plurality of replicated digital symbol streams to provide an amplified and selected digital symbol stream; converting the amplified and selected digital symbol stream into a sink data stream in binary format; identifying and selecting desired digital signals of the sink data stream for the plurality of the receiving stations; and delivering the identified and selected digital signals to signal nodes.