Cable television passive optical network

A baseband burst mode optical transmitter for receiving reverse electrical signals and for providing a reverse optical signal. The baseband burst mode optical transmitter includes an analog-to-digital converter and a framer/encoder circuit for adding a synchronization word and a start-of-data word to the reverse digital signals. Additionally, a carrier detect circuit is included for detecting the presence of a carrier signal included in the reverse electrical signals, whereby when the carrier detect circuit detects the presence of the carrier signal, the optical transmitter transmits optical signals (i.e., optical signals are only transmitted if the reverse electrical signals include the carrier signal). A baseband burst mode optical receiver receives the optical signals and strips the synchronization word and start-of-data word from the digital signals and then converts the signals back to analog signals.