Method and apparatus for integration of a wireless communication system with a cable T.V. system

• US 5,867,763 A
• Filed: 02/08/1996
• Issued: 02/02/1999
• Est. Priority Date: 02/08/1996
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Inventors: Wheatley, Charles E. III, Dean, Richard F., Weaver, Lindsay A. Jr.
• Primary Examiner(s): Grant, Chris
• Application Number:
  US08/600,104
• Time in Patent Office: 1,090 Days
• Field of Search: 455/3.1, 455/4.1, 455/4.2, 455/6.1, 455/5.1, 455/6.3, 455/561, 455/562, 455/524, 455/66, 455/436, 455/440, 455/444, 455/446, 455/447, 455/448, 455/449, 348/6, 348/7, 348/12, 348/13
• US Class Current: 725/114
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17309 Transmission or handling of upstream communications
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/085 Access point devices with remote components
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

The present invention is a method and apparatus for integrating a personal communication system with a cable television plant. A set of radio antenna devices (RAD) are connected to the cable plant. The RADs provide frequency conversion and power control of signal received from the cable plant for wireless transmission to the remote units. The RADs also provide power control and frequency conversion of wireless signals received from the remote units for transmission by the RADs onto the cable plant. In addition to the functions of standard base stations and centralized controller, the CATV base station must also compensate for gain variations in the cable plant. The downstream power control is regulated by a RAD reference signal which can be hidden within the CDMA signal for maximum efficiency. The upstream power control is regulated by an upstream gain reference signal which is individually transmitted by each RAD on the upstream link. The architecture of the present invention lends itself to a great deal of flexibility. Each RAD can operate as either an element of a distributed antenna or a base station sector unto itself. The function of each RAD as distributed antenna or as sector can be remotely programmed from the headend processor. Thus the capacity density of the system can be changed to accommodate the changing traffic density. The flexibility also is important at system deployment. When the system is deploy, the entire system may feed only one sector at the base station thus reducing the start-up cost of implementing a system. As system traffic increases, more resources can simply be added at the headend to provide more capacity.

Claims

1. An apparatus for providing a communication coverage areas throughout a communication system comprising a cable television plant comprising:

a series of radio antenna devices (RADs) spaced along a cable each of said series of RADs having a cable input and a cable output and a wireless input and a wireless output, wherein each of said series of RADs receives input forward link communication signals and a RAD reference signal from said cable through said cable input and each of said RADs provides output forward link communication signals through said wireless output and each of said RADs receives input reverse link communication signals through said wireless input and each of said RADs provides output reverse link communication signal and upstream gain reference signal through said cable output; and

a headend processor coupled to said cable having a base station, said base station having a set of demodulation elements programmably coupled to at least one of a plurality of said series of RADs;

wherein if a first two of said series of RADs are transmitting a common forward link communication signal, said first two operate as nodes of a distributed antenna and wherein if said first two are transmitting different forward link communication signals, said first two operated as sectors of said communication system and wherein said RAD reference signal controls whether said first two operate as nodes or as sectors.