Broadband solutions provider Terayon Communication Systems has announced that Liwest, the second largest cable television operator in Austria, is using Terayon's complete Euro-Docsis 2.0 based cable data system to deliver its "24Speed" broadband service.

The Euro-Docsis 2.0 cable broadband specification is based on the North American Docsis 2.0 specification and is optimised for European cable networks. Docsis stands for 'data over cable service interface specification'.

Liwest has stated that Euro-Docsis 2.0 is a key component of its business strategy. It supports the ongoing efforts to minimise capital and operating expenses while enabling the company to enhance its 24Speed service with the cable telephony and other advanced broadband services that Liwest plans to offer.

The company was quoted in an official release, as saying that their migration to Euro-Docsis 2.0 from the proprietary Terayon solution and Euro-Docsis 1.0 was straightforward and allowed it to immediately realise many of the benefits of 2.0 without interim steps.

Furthermore the company is prepared to deliver services requiring the Quality of Service (QoS).

26 Terayon's BW 3200 Cable Modem Termination Systems (CMTSs) have so far been deployed in Liwest's head-end facilities in the area around Linz. It is Austria's second largest city with approximately 100,000 Liwest subscribers. These CMTSs are controlling and interoperating with Terayon's TJ 720x cable modems that are being installed in subscribers' homes. This forms an end-to-end system for the delivery of high-speed Internet access and other broadband services that are enabled by the greater two-way bandwidth of Euro-Docsis 2.0.

Terayon has said that the worldwide momentum for Euro-Docsis 2.0 and Docsis 2.0 is growing as deployments increase with cable operators recognizing their substantial performance and economic advantages. For instance, deploying a Docsis 2.0 CMTS today instead of non-2.0 CMTS can result in capital expenditure savings of up to 40 per cent in the first year, and operational cost savings of as much as 40 per cent over three years adds the release.

Docsis 2.0 and Euro-Docsis 2.0 are the latest cable broadband specifications respectively developed for North American and European cable networks. They incorporate all the advanced security and QoS capabilities of the previous versions and are updated with the addition of advanced physical layer technologies. These technologies enable the delivery of broadband services over cable operators' existing network infrastructures without costly upgrades. This helps operators reduce their capital and operational costs as they roll out new services or expand the penetration of their existing services.

The release adds that the advanced physical layer technologies of Docsis 2.0 and Euro-Docsis 2.0 also increase maximum upstream output by as much as three times compared to previous versions.

This greater upstream capacity enables operators to improve the performance of their existing broadband services and to offer telephony, online gaming, peer-to-peer computing and other services requiring substantial upstream bandwidth. Delivering new broadband services is increasingly important for operators worldwide as competition from satellite and DSL increase, states the release.