Local area network for simultaneous, bi-directional transmission of video bandwidth signals, including a switching matrix which defines user connections, upstream connections, and downstream connections and has an efficient configuration to minimize the

摘要

A local area network for the simultaneous, bi-directional transmission of video bandwidth signals includes an economical switching matrix. The switching matrix defines upstream connections, downstream connections, and user connections and a plurality of switching points in order to provide bi-directional switching capability between every user and every upstream connection, between every user and every downstream connection, and between every user and every other user connected to the matrix, while using fewer than half of the usual NN number of switching points, where N equals the number of user connections plus the number of upstream connections plus the number of downstream connections.