Patent ID: 7848731

Claim:
A system comprising: an antenna; a cable modem connectable to a coaxial cable of a Hybrid Fiber Coaxial (HFC) network; a remote antenna entity connected to the antenna, wherein the remote antenna entity receives from the antenna a first radio frequency (RF) signal carrying a first analog baseband signal representing digital signals having a destination of a base transceiver station (BTS), wherein the digital signals are transmitted to the antenna via multiple reverse-link communication channels from one or more wireless communication devices; and a first signal conditioner connected to the remote antenna entity and to the cable modem, wherein the first signal conditioner (i) receives the first RF signal from the remote antenna entity, (ii) demodulates the first RF signal to recover the first analog baseband signal, (iii) makes power level measurements of the recovered first analog baseband signal, (iv) generates a combined digital signal comprising data bits representing one of the power level measurements, (v) generates a set of broadband packets with payload carrying the combined digital signal, and (vi) provides the set of broadband packets with payload carrying the combined digital signal to the cable modem for transmission over the HFC network for receipt at a second signal conditioner that interfaces to the BTS.