Patent ID: 7450859

Claim:
An optical subscriber network system comprising: a server bi-directional optical transmitter including: a multiplexer for multiplexing communication data and broadcast data; a server laser diode for converting the multiplexed data into an optical signal for downstream transmission to a subscriber; a server photo diode for receiving and converting optical signals comprising communication data from a subscriber, wherein the server bi-directional optical transmitter transmits the upstream communication data; a first PHY device for converting the communication data received from the server photo diode into a media independent interface (MII) signal; and an Ethernet switch coupled to the first PHY device, the multiplexer and a second PHY device; and a subscriber bi-directional optical receiver including: a subscriber laser diode for transmitting upstream communication data, a subscriber photo diode for receiving and converting the optical signal transmitted from the server bi-directional optical transmitter into an electrical signal, and a demultiplexer for multiplexing and dividing the multiplexed signal into communication data and broadcast data; wherein the optical transmitter and optical receiver are configured for transceiving image signals and Ethernet communication signals in two directions by a single laser diode and photo diode; and wherein the multiplexer and demultiplexer comprise time division multiplexer (TDM) and demultiplexer (TDDM), respectively; an Ethernet switch configured to (1) switch communication data transmitted from a demultiplexer to a subscriber computer, and (2) receive the communication data transmitted from the subscriber computer; the first PHY device being coupled to the demultiplexer for converting the communication data with a media independent interface type (MII type) into a TX signal; the second PHY device for converting the TX signal into a MII signal for the Ethernet switch, and to convert a MII signal from the Ethernet switch into a TX signal for to a subscriber laser diode; and a third PHY device for converting the MII signal into a multi level transmit-3 (MLT-3) signal wherein, the TX signal output from the second PHY device is used to operate the first PHY device.