It is shown that, when multiple optical carriers are used in a subcarrier multiplexing system, optical interference noise limits the system bandwidth or the number of available channels. Results of a statistical analysis are presented for a system with multilongitudinal mode semiconductor lasers. The results of the statistical calculations indicate that, when one channel per optical source is transmitted, then the system will be limited to only 16 video-quality channels. However, this number can be increased carefully by choosing and maintaining separate wavelengths for the lasers, in order to minimize the interference noise.
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