Abstract: Fiber-to-the-home communication systems and methods that use coarse wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) channels for upstream data traffic to increase the dedicated upstream data rate for each subscriber to greater than 10 Megabit/sec. Data for upstream transmission from the subscriber to a first location (central office) quadrature amplitude/phase shift key modulates a unique microwave carrier frequency. The modulated carrier frequency containing the upstream data intensity modulates the optical output of a laser operating at a unique optical wavelength. The subscriber optical signals at the second locations are combined and optically transmitted to a photodetector at the first location. The photodetector produces a composite microwave spectrum including all subscriber quadrature amplitude/phase shift keyed data spectra and low and high frequency inter-subscriber cross products.

Abstract: A system and method for operating a Broadband ISDN to support a viable virtual private network (VPN) service are attained by establishing a plurality of virtual path links connecting customer locations and broadband switching systems, by cross-connecting virtual channel links at the broadband switching systems to establish end-to-end virtual channel connections, and by policing both the input and output traffic only on the virtual path links. The egress policing function is attained through the use of the ingress policing processors by looping back one customer's traffic from an outgoing trunk into an input port on the broadband switching system.

Abstract: A system and method for operating a Broadband ISDN to support a viable virtual private network (VPN) service are attained by establishing a plurality of virtual path links connecting customer locations and broadband switching systems, by cross-connecting virtual channel links at the broadband switching systems to establish end-to-end virtual channel connections, and by policing both the input and output traffic only on the virtual path links. An egress policing processor is included at each output port on broadband switches to police the traffic on each virtual path link which contains one customer's multiplexed virtual channel connection traffic.