This paper clarifies the sideband suppression ratio (SSR) value needed for multi-carrier signal modulation in an optical single sideband (SSB) modulator. An SSR value of about 25 dB is found to be sufficient for broadcast satellite (BS) multi-carrier signal modulation. For FM converted CATV signal modulation, an SSR value of about 10 dB is sufficient. In addition, the properties of cascaded lithium niobate Mach-Zehndar (LN MZ) optical SSB modulators are clarified to be better than those of the conventional single LN MZ optical SSB modulator with nearly the same SSR value of 27 dB.

FM converted CATV and super high frequency satellite TV signal transmission using lithium niobate Mach-Zehnder optical SSB modulator is proposed and demonstrated. Simultaneous FM-converted 40 CATV signal carriers (from 93 to 375 MHz) and 104 super high frequency satellite TV signal carriers (from 11.7 to 20.2 GHz) could be transmitted with good noise properties and distortion quality over 40 km of dispersive SMF with chromatic dispersion of 680 ps/nm. We clarify the required phase and power values by experiments on the relationship between sideband suppression ratio (SSR) and the phase/power to LN MZ optical SSB modulator. For instance, the absolute value of phase and power should be less than 5 degrees and 0.4 dB, respectively, to obtain SSR values above 35 dB.