Importance

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Abstract

An optical fiber point-to-multipoint communications network is disclosed of the type having a bus topology. The broadcasting terminal (101) of the network includes an information transmitting laser (102) and a local oscillator laser (103) the signals of which are launched onto opposite ends of an optical fiber bus (104) to counter-propagate thereon. At each of the M stations (105-1-105-M) connected to the bus, a wideband directional coupler (106-1-106-M) couples portions of each of the counter-propagating signals to a balanced coherent detector (107-1-107-M). The effective total power input to the balanced coherent detector at each of the stations is equal regardless of the location of the station relative to the broadcasting terminal. In another embodiment the stations are connected to ring-shaped optical subbuses which are coupled to the main bus. Several two-way point-to-multipoint embodiments are disclosed which employ wavelength division multiplexing techniques to enable communications from the stations back to the broadcasting terminal.

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First Claim