Performance of a multitone transceiver for data transmission over the copper segment in a fibre to the pedestal system

We determine the maximum bit rate that can be achieved by a multitone transceiver for either unidirectional or bidirectional data transmission on a single twisted pair cable of 50 m, which is used to connect the subscriber to an optical network unit at the pedestal. We show that for a given bit error rate of 10/sup -7/ and a 6 dB SNR margin, full duplex bit rates of 42-72 Mb/s can be achieved with transmit power levels of 10-100 mW. For simplex data transmission, data rates of 66-96 Mb/s can be obtained, using a transmit power of only 0.1-1 mW.