Patent ID: 8543003

Claim:
A cable communication system to provide voice and/or data services to a plurality of subscriber premises, the system comprising: at least a first neighborhood node having an infrastructure comprising: a first fiber optic cable; a first node optical/RF converter coupled to the first fiber optic cable; and a ingress-mitigated cable plant, coupled to the first node optical/RF converter, to convey at least upstream information from the plurality of subscriber premises over an upstream path bandwidth assigned to the first neighborhood node, wherein: the cable plant in the first neighborhood node passes at least 200 premises; the plurality of subscriber premises in the first neighborhood node includes at least 75 subscriber premises; the cable plant includes at least 20 amplifiers; a node mileage of the first neighborhood node is at least three miles; and a cascade for the cable plant in the first neighborhood node is at least five (NODE+5); and a headend or hub comprising: a headend optical/radio frequency (RF) converter coupled to the first fiber optic cable of the first neighborhood node; a cable modem system coupled to the headend optical/RF converter and including a plurality of demodulation tuners to receive and demodulate a plurality of upstream radio frequency (RF) signals from the first neighborhood node, each upstream RF signal of the plurality of upstream RF signals including at least one encoded carrier wave having at least one carrier frequency in the upstream path bandwidth of the first neighborhood node and being modulated, using quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), with voice and/or data information constituting at least some of the upstream information from at least some of the plurality of subscriber premises, wherein: the plurality of upstream RF signals includes a first upstream RF signal having at least one first carrier frequency of greater than or equal to approximately 5 MHz, and less than or equal to approximately 19.6 MHz; the first upstream RF signal defines a first upstream physical communication channel in the upstream path bandwidth of the first neighborhood node, the first upstream physical communication channel having a first upstream average channel power; and a highest value for an average noise power between 5 MHz and 19.6 MHz in the upstream path bandwidth, as measured over at least a 24 hour period at a first junction of the cable modem system and the headend optical/RF converter or a second junction of the cable plant and the first node optical/RF converter, is at least 25 decibels (dB) below the first upstream average channel power.