I don't know what the entire frequency range of modern cable TV/cable
internet is, but not all splitters work the way you described. They fall
into two general categories: resistive (lossy) and low-loss. The resistive
ones cause at least 6 dB per two-way split or in the general case,
20*log_10 (N) where N is the order of the split (i.e., an "N-way" split).
Their advantage is that they are cheap and very broadband.

The low-loss ones usually consist of an array of matching elements plus
load resistors - which only come into play when outputs are not properly
terminated. Even these do not reach 10*log_10 (N) "loss" (power division)
but can come close, but they are limited to two or three octaves of
frequency at most (e.g., really good ones achieve a 5:1 max:min frequency
ratio), whereas resistive ones will work all the way down to DC.



On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 9:41 PM, Neil Cherry <ncherry@linuxha.com> wrote:

> With each split there is a 3db (halved) power drop
>
>         /-----------------[ n - 3.5db - 3.5db ]-
> -[ n ]-+               /-[ n - 3.5db ]---------
>         \-[ n - 3.5db ]-+
>                         \-[ n - 3.5db - 3.5db ]-
>
>
--=20
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