We study the effects of noise when erbium-doped fiber amplifiers are used as signal boosters for signal distribution in AM-VSB subcarrier multiplexed lightwave CATV systems. We develop a procedure for finding the amplifier length required to achieve a desired carrier-to-noise ratio at the receiver, while maximizing the allowed post-amplifier splitting ratios and transmission losses. We also develop a simple and easy-to-use approach which circumvents the computationally intensive optimization procedure, and allows the design of systems whose performance is very close to optimal.