The Hybrid System

Compromises almost always provide the best return on investment and there's no surprise that that's true here. A hybrid installation would combine both a star topology and linear trunks to create an installation where identified "zones" are individually home run, but multiple drops in each zone minimize installation labor and materials. A good example of a system like this would be our hypothetical three-floor house where a home run cable comes from each floor to the distribution location. Now each floor might have a dozen or more taps providing MATV access on each wall of every room for maximum flexibility in the placement of furniture and electronics. At the same time each floor can be given unique attributes. The home theater may even be considered its own zone with taps feeding all the devices associated with the theater gear. Perhaps you'll have both cable services and satellite in the theater, but only cable to the rest of the zones. Maybe you'll enlarge the capability of the system from the original 8 drops anticipated to 36 drops covering every future lay-out and option you can think of. Now you’ll have truly scalable infrastructure that can service all your plans, now and in the future.