Hello
I don´t think people here have really thought about this new technology as it stands. I think it is deeply flawed and inefficient.
I will give you an example. Say you wish to distribute a satellite signal to a small estate. Lets use 32 houses as that is what Global/Invacom say is the maximum number of outputs possible from their LNB - so the last outputs on that system (assuming the splitters have no internal loss – impossible but we shall assume for ease) will have 3.125% of the signal coming out of the new LNB. Assume houses in a row and dish at beginning.
With say a televes modular cascading multiswitch system, you would run four cables out of quattrol lnb to first house fit a four output multiswitch, you would then run four cables from that multiswitch to the next house where there would be another multiswitch and so on and so forth to house 32. (OK so I have ingnored amps – keeping simple as I am trying to show cable usage).
On the new system, yes one feed comes out of LNB to house one. Now we need to work out the most efficient way to split the signal. If we try to minimise fibre usage by using a two way splitter feeding one output to the new fibre to coaxial converter (I will abbreviate FCC) and the other output to house two and repeat this we will reach 3.125% of original signal by house five . No good.
To get 32 outputs we have to split the feed at house one with a two way splitter, one cable continues its run, the other one is split with a four way splitter, three of these feeds continue their run, the remaining feed is split by another four way splitter. Three of these feeds (sub Sub Sub feed) continue their run and the remaining feed goes to a four way FCC. So now we have 1 + 3 + 3 i.e. seven cables continuing to house two. One of the sub sub sub feeds goes to a four way FCC, then the six remaining cables go to house three, again one sub sub sub feed goes to a four way FCC five feeds go to house four, this continues until the first set of sub sub sub feeds are used then a sub sub feed will need to be connected to a four way splitter and so on and so forth.
Now these FCC are about three times the price of a standard Televes cascading modular multiswitch, and the LNB is at least three times the price of a standard quattro LNB. Now think of the cost of these fibre optic cables (pre-terminated is expensive). Ok so there is little signal loss with fibre and you save a little on amps. I can only think this system would be cost effective if you had a circular estate with the dish in the middle and used and eight way initial splitter. A spiders web kind of design.
I think the system would have worked if they had a daisy chainable system. Had a laser amplifier in each FCC (so negligible signal loss) and just run another thin cable for low voltage power for the amp ( I take credit for this idea and am happy to accept royalty cheques!!) So only two cables power and signal.
Pity I had been looking forward to fitting a fibre optic system, but after working out the practicalities (or otherwise) of the system it is not cost effective or time effective.
Thoughts anyone?